[Al_U_Card]

A real explanation of what is going on in Syria. Not surprising, how our view is warped by politics.

[y66]

From The Year in Pictures 2016 at NY Times.



BATON ROUGE, LA. 7/9/2016
Ieshia Evans confronted law enforcement officers in riot gear during a protest following the shooting death of Alton Sterling by the police.
Jonathan Bachman/Reuters

Quote

IT WAS A YEAR to be confounded, shocked, humbled.

Donald J. Trump won the American presidency, defying polls, mockery and fear to defeat Hillary Clinton. Britons jolted their country and the world by voting to leave the European Union. Syria’s agony played out before a largely indifferent world, its children staring into the camera with eyes wide in terror, blood flecking their clothing.

The president of the Philippines unleashed a merciless war on drugs, boasting of killing drug dealers himself when he was a mayor, and many of his citizens cheered him on. Climate change created a new class of refugees, even as climate-change skeptics were nominated to key United States cabinet posts.

And talk about shocking: The Chicago Cubs won the World Series after a drought of 108 years.

It was a year so unexpected, so tumultuous, that the fight has just begun over which narrative might possibly explain it. For some, it was the comeuppance of the elites and the rebellion of the forgotten white working class. Or it was the triumph of resentment, rage and racism. Or payback for identity politics. Or perhaps it was a rallying cry for identity politics.

One lesson was clear: Economic and cultural upheavals have consequences. Free trade and globalization, many economists argue, are inexorable forces. But in the United States as in Europe, the exodus of high-paying manufacturing jobs has taken a political as well as an economic toll. Chancellor Angela Merkel lifted many hearts and outraged others when she opened Germany’s doors to desperate refugees. But as in Britain, France, and Italy, there was a backlash from those who conflate Muslim refugees with terrorism, and migrants with economic competition. After terrorist attacks from Paris to Nice, Berlin to Brussels, a frightened world is further barring its doors.

Was there ever such an American election? The spectacle that was the Trump campaign riveted the world. The images are indelible: Mr. Trump in silhouette drawing thousands to ecstatic rallies where he pledged to bring back jobs, but also of crowds spewing hate.

Hillary Clinton raced to make history as the first female president, allowing herself a brief moment of exultation, arms thrown wide. Then the surprise of her narrow defeat: Women pasted “I Voted” stickers on Susan B. Anthony’s grave, while soon after, President Obama welcomed President-elect Trump to the White House.

Violence struck in Orlando, with gay revelers attacked at the Pulse nightclub, and in Dallas and Baton Rouge, where the targets were law enforcement officers. Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were gunned down by the police. Rape, as ever a tool of war, was deployed by the Islamic State against Yazidi sex slaves. Mexican women, sexually assaulted by the police, broke their silence.

Meanwhile, Zika continued to ravage its victims. Cholera was the latest of the scourges visited on Haiti. Empty shelves and emaciated mental patients showed the worsening toll of Venezuela’s failing economy.

It was a year in desperate need of grace notes. Simone Biles and American gymnastics team entranced the world at the Olympic Games in Brazil. Vienna waltzes soared at the New York City Ballet. And then there was Zarifeh Shalabi, elected prom queen in Fontana, Calif., with her crown atop her hijab.

So much to absorb. Yet if 2016 was a world turned upside down, as the cast of the Broadway hit “Hamilton” sings of the American Revolution, just wait until next year.

— SUSAN CHIRA

[Winstonm]

Lest we forget: https://www.youtube....t=RDTRE9vMBBe10

[y66]

From Things We Learned In 2016:

Quote

One minute of all-out exercise may provide the benefits of 45 minutes of moderate exertion.

Sixth graders in the richest school districts are four grade levels ahead of children in the poorest districts.

Death from gun homicide in the United States is as common as dying in a car accident. In Japan, it’s as rare as a fatal lightning strike.

American men in the top 1 percent in income live 15 years longer than the poorest 1 percent; for women, the gap is 10 years.

Deaths from overdoses are reaching levels similar to the H.I.V. epidemic at its peak.

Private equity firms are taking over services usually reserved for the government — from water to public transportation to 911 call centers.

There were more than 700,000 Google searches looking into self-induced abortions in 2015.

Terrorism deaths have increased in the West. But, worldwide, they’re declining.

Rising sea levels are changing the way people think about waterfront real estate. People across the nation are growing wary of buying property in areas most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

Belgium has opened a two-mile beer pipeline. [There were no protests]

[y66]

[onoway]

https://www.facebook...&type=3

[y66]

From Roger Federer, Defying Age, Tops Rafael Nadal in Australian Open Final:

Quote

Federer played here with verve and precision but had to scrap his way through three five-set matches in the final four rounds, receiving plenty of treatment between duels. Although he did not have to deal with the world’s two leading players, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic, who were upset in the first week, Federer did face top 10 opponents aplenty.

He defeated four of them: Tomas Berdych, Kei Nishikori, Stan Wawrinka and — most important — Nadal, the swashbuckling Spanish left-hander who has so often thwarted Federer on big occasions but who failed to seal the deal on Sunday despite taking a 3-1 lead in the fifth set.

That was perhaps when Federer’s tempered expectations helped him most. This really did feel like gravy after all the major meals he has enjoyed through the years, and he stuck with the game plan he and his coaches, Severin Lüthi and Ivan Ljubicic, had discussed.

“I told myself to play free,” Federer said. “You play the ball. You don’t play the opponent. Be free in your head. Be free in your shots. Go for it. The brave will be rewarded here. I didn’t want to go down just making shots, seeing forehands rain down on me from Rafa.”

[gwnn]

history of the entire world, i guess.

https://www.youtube....h?v=xuCn8ux2gbs

[Aberlour10]

Who has stolen the Hillary Step ???

[y66]

Perfect climb

Excerpt:

Quote

In the weeks before the final ascent, Chin told me, he came around to believing that Honnold was ready and gave an explanation along the same lines. “If you look at Alex’s body right now, I have never seen anything like it,” Chin said. “But he also has this capacity to compartmentalize fear, to rationalize it. His brain is so powerful that if a thought or feeling is not serving him he can put it away.”

That’s not to say that Honnold’s friends stopped feeling wonderment and worry. During Honnold’s final practice run with Caldwell, Honnold climbed first through the hardest single section on the cliff, a spot more than 2,000 feet up called the Boulder Problem — a short and extremely intricate sequence of delicate movements that Honnold worked for years to master and memorize. After Honnold finished the Boulder Problem, he perched just beyond it to give precise instructions to Caldwell, who is inarguably the better technical climber.

“It’s a very glassy, smooth, insecure crux,” Caldwell told me. “You have just a couple of little ripples for your feet and some very bad small, sloping handholds. Alex was right above me and I followed his instructions and I still fell.”

Honnold himself never grew comfortable enough with that move to have a member of Chin’s film crew present. “It was a little too intimate and if I did fall, some dude would be traumatized,” Honnold said, explaining that he asked Chin to deploy only a remotely operated camera there.

“Something definitely could have gone wrong,” Chin told me, of Honnold’s climb. “But Alex was going to ace that exam. There was no doubt. He had prepared in every way possible and he functions best when the stakes are that high. Was I nervous, still? Of course, but if you saw him climbing … Alex moved beyond the zone. It was effortless. It was brilliant. I don’t even know if he was breathing hard.”

[y66]

From I moved my kids out of America. It was the best parenting decision I've ever made. by Wendy DeChambeau:

Quote

"I really wish you'd reconsider your decision," my neighbor Steve said. He strode over, hands on hips, and added, "I hear it's dangerous down there. I'm really worried about your kids."

The decision he was referring to was the radical idea that my husband and I had settled on. We were moving, along with our two young sons — at age 7 and 9 — from small town U.S.A. to a modest mountain village in Ecuador. Steve wasn't the only one with concerns. My brother, who normally lauded my parenting choices, was ominously silent on this one, afraid that talking about it would make it real, give it life and validation.

Some of our friends turned on us, calling us terrible parents, or saying we were unpatriotic. Why would we want to leave the land of the free and the home of the brave? And where was Ecuador, anyway? Somewhere near Mexico? Africa? We were taking our children to a country that most Americans can't even point to on a map. What were we thinking?

Well, we were thinking a lot of things, and taking a number of factors into consideration. In America, it seemed every third child was taking pharmaceuticals to treat behavioral issues, anxiety, or depression. High school students were unloading automatic weapons into their classmates. Opioid use was reaching all new highs. Bank executives were defrauding their customers and Wall Street was walking an increasingly thin tight rope. It felt like The American Dream as we knew it was all but gone, having transformed into a shadowy unknown. We fretted about what the future would hold for our family. We thought maybe, just maybe, a simpler lifestyle somewhere else was the answer. And so, in 2011, our family walked up to the edge of the unknown, took a deep breath, and jumped.

[RedSpawn]

y66, on 2017-June-16, 19:37, said:

From I moved my kids out of America. It was the best parenting decision I've ever made. by Wendy DeChambeau:

As you have already said, travel and living in other parts of the world, helps remove preconceived notions, prejudices and paradigms that we accept as universal truths. Travel is a form of deprogramming that helps us better appreciate the human struggle and the human condition. It helps us understand how nature, culture, fellowship, and family are the true elements of life.

And as this article has highlighted, the human connection is always superior to the trappings of the virtual connection.

Henry David Thoreau said, "We do not ride upon the railroad, it rides upon us." The same applies to technology and the internet and the smart phone. Thoreau also said,

Quote

Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his 10 fingers, or in extreme cases, he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest.

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. I say let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million, count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on a thumbnail. We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine and Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing to communicate.

We are beholden to the soulless demands and ruthless efficiency of technology. We stare at screens that illuminate all day but rarely illuminate our minds. We respond to the electronic stimuli, but rarely find an intellectually stimulating experience. We constantly stare at these screens looking for escape, entertainment, and convenient distractions, but can't engage our fellow man to explore his narrative.

We search for truth about our physical reality by connecting to a virtual one. That's our first mistake. We look for sound advice by consulting a mindless device. That's our second mistake. We send data into outer space hoping to learn more about our inner space. That's our third mistake.

We travel the information superhighway littered with faceless corporations that bombard us with unsolicited ads appealing to our most base desires. They knowingly proposition us for mindless consumption under the false disguise of commerce. We buy; they sell. They profit; we lose. They relieve their excess inventory; and we have yet to conduct a personal inventory.

Where is the knowledge of self we seek? We've been hoodwinked and sold a false bill of goods in pursuit of a higher self. We pivot towards an unrelenting global, knowledge economy at the peril of our personal economy. We marvel at our technological innovation and christen this the Information Age, not realizing we have opened the portal to the Misinformation Age.

We do not ride upon the information superhighway; it rides upon us.

See https://journal.thri...st-56d62ef5edf3 as provided in another BBO Forum topic.

"The average person checks their phone 150 times a day."

[Winstonm]

Lincoln Riley? Is that the Lincoln coach?

[y66]

RedSpawn, on 2017-June-16, 22:43, said:

As you have already said, travel and living in other parts of the world, helps remove preconceived notions, prejudices and paradigms that we accept as universal truths. Travel is a form of deprogramming that helps us better appreciate the human struggle and the human condition. It helps us understand how nature, culture, fellowship, and family are the true elements of life.

And as this article has highlighted, the human connection is always superior to the trappings of the virtual connection.

Henry David Thoreau said, "We do not ride upon the railroad, it rides upon us.". The same applies to technology and the internet and the smart phone. Thoreau also said,
We are beholden to the soulless demands and ruthless efficiency of technology. We stare at screens that illuminate all day but rarely illuminate our minds. We respond to the electronic stimuli, but rarely find an intellectually stimulating experience. We constantly stare at these screens looking for escape, entertainment, and convenient distractions, but can't engage our fellow man to explore his narrative.

We search for truth about our physical reality by connecting to a virtual one. That's our first mistake. We look for sound advice by consulting a mindless device. That's our second mistake. We send data into outer space hoping to learn more about our inner space. That's our third mistake.

We travel the information superhighway littered with faceless corporations that bombard us with unsolicited ads appealing to our most base desires. They knowingly proposition us for mindless consumption under the false disguise of commerce. We buy; they sell. They profit; we lose. They relieve their excess inventory; and we have yet to conduct a personal inventory.

Where is the knowledge of self we seek? We've been hoodwinked and sold a false bill of goods in pursuit of a higher self. We pivot towards an unrelenting global, knowledge economy at the peril of our personal economy. We marvel at our technological innovation and christen this the Information Age, not realizing we have opened the portal to the Misinformation Age.

We do not ride on the information superhighway: it rides upon us.

Where is the knowledge we seek? In the posts of kenberg?

[y66]

from How the Times will use Moderator:

Quote

Our partnership with Jigsaw and Instrument builds on work we’ve done in partnership with The Washington Post, Knight Foundation and Mozilla on the Coral Project, an effort that helps news sites accept and manage reader submissions on a large scale.

In the long run, we hope to reimagine what it means to “comment” online. The Times is developing a community where readers can discuss the news pseudonymously in an environment safe from harassment, abuse and even your crazy uncle. We hope you join us on the journey.

Very happy to hear someone is reimagining this.

[RedSpawn]

shyams, on 2010-January-06, 07:03, said:

The Matrix is real. We are all in it...

Why so? Can you provide some real life examples? Who is the Oracle and who is the Architect? Who is Neo?

Are you oversimplifying the importance of programs in our daily lives?

Please provide a real life example of a glitch in the Matrix.

[Al_U_Card]

We are receivers, accumulators, processors and transmitters of energy and data. The sense of what and how we provide our unique perspective is a fundamental element in the synthesis of our evolutionary existence. We need not seek knowledge (data becomes information and has meaning when we relate it as regards our position) but we need to develop knowing. The act, art and science of our presence. The only impediments are not remaining open and not developing and exercising the discernment necessary to deal with the wheat and discard the chaff. Not in absolute terms but rather that which has relevance to us specifically. Respect is the operational characteristic of this state. Anything less is beneath our purpose.

[kenberg]

y66, on 2017-June-17, 08:03, said:

Where is the knowledge we seek? In the posts of kenberg?

Yes, but you have to read them backward.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2017-June-19, 19:22, said:

Yes, but you have to read them backward.

33 1/3?

[Zelandakh]

Winstonm, on 2017-June-19, 21:35, said:

kenberg, on 2017-June-19, 19:22, said:

Yes, but you have to read them backward.

33 1/3?

That would make Ken 84?