Thursday, January 31, 2008

Politics


Crime show on when I came home...forgot Basketball tonight...caught the end of the game...debate is on...maybe should watch that...


I haven't been keeping track of the wars at all...oh...they're trying to trip up Hillary with her voting record....Sixty Days and Out!...maybe Hillary's slogan which rankles McCain...once these primarys are done will it be that distinctive a difference between the Republicans and Democrats?...Obama is happy to have the argument...


I'll vote for Hillary Teusday....
DavidDavid
Tree in the Door


Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Courtesans


Documentary on about Patagonia on PBS when I came home...clip of Hawk that looked a bit like Coop!...flipped through news crimes shows and movies and the debate from Reagan Library...McCain looks like the Cat!...for the Republicans....



Laptop is lagging when I turn it on...it doesn't turn on!...so I keep my fingers crossed...



Goldman Sachs acquired some wild land down there....brb...Wildlife Conservation Society....and the story...





Well...I took some time to find out how this land deal happened...but it doesn't shout out just...what happened!...mmm...



From a discussion at break I googled up Dangerous Beauty and the tale of courtesan Veronica Franco...this all from wondering if Geishas were courtesans!...and I threw in Justinian's wife...who I must remember here with a google!...brb....Theodora!...site credits her with putting some backbone in Justinian..who instead of fleeing stayed and suppressed the Blues and Greens war...now...were Geishas courtesans???brb...no...a very speciealized courtesan!!...



quote



In a social style that is uniquely Japanese, men are amused by the illusion of that which is never to be.



unquote

DavidDavid
Tree in the Door

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Diana and Delos


I found this in the search last night...from wikipedia...


quote


In Greek mythology Artemis is the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. Leto had to find a place where the sun had never shone to give birth to the two due to a curse set by Hera, Zeus' wife, because she was angry with Zeus. For this, Zeus raised an island that had been floating underwater and not yet touched by the sun. The island was Delos, and Leto gave birth there, while grasping hold of a sacred palm tree. Artemis was born first, on the 6th of the month. She then proceeded to assist her mother with the birth of Apollo, who was born on the 7th.


unquote


Story of the building of the Parthenon on PBS...they're looking now at the Temple of Apollo....entaces?
Well...that's remarkable...there's a Parthenon replica in Nashville, TN...with a full scale Athena inside!
Now..something on about Romans...but I got lost in reading!! Delos is cool.
Caledonian highlanders...apparently some ruthless war of Old Rome against ancient Scots. They're making a movie about the Lost Ninth Legion...from a book...The Eagle of the Ninth, Rosemary Sutcliff...
DavidDavid
Tree in the Door

Monday, January 28, 2008

Too much stuff...


Simpsons on...Homer's working two jobs....

a bit more on Brochures...

there's a car commercial...car is rolling through the countryside and one by one animals jump in it and sing together a Niel Diamond...it's an Andy Kim song..and his voice!?...this commercial is being heavily blogged!!... song...rock me....it's nice...but...but car commercials often put the car out in the country side...like a car is somekinda countryside...venue....often I hear from the old timers hereabout about all the critters they've run into...literally...over the years on the country roads...

tonight there was another commercial with all sizes and shapes playing tennis...think it was some cell phone and how to avoid crowding add...but again I was reminded of the venue thing...

I even tried to explain it..."everyone's got these art things on the web now...but it's like a crowded marathon race...it's all you can do to do what you are doing...and invititations to look right and left and at others efforts doesn't happen!...so these email list mailings are fun...but afterawhile it's too much!!...there's too much stuff!!"

George Lopez on now...dogs too expensive to fix up....nowadays this happens with people too...

Well...the commercial...and Andy Kim...couldn't find Diamond's on Youtube...but found this bit done to Allison's Down to the River to Pray...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1FQqSGxBso

it goes through some river scenery...but at the end has a finale of birds flocking over a river...very neat...wish I could put Allison's music to my clips!!

And this ones' precious...how often I've listened on these country roads!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GU5hWdaQfY&NR=1

Everytime you say goodbye. Allison Krauss with Union Station and Sierra...

DavidDavid
Tree in the Door

Sunday, January 27, 2008

No More Sea


Lots of movies...but slept most afternoon!...caught the end of Titanic...those cold final scenes of blue frost are echoed outside as a real winter storm this time has come along....the passengers are being consoled by a minister...and I heard the "no more sea"...




Story of the Yangtze on now....achaeology problems from the rising water...




brb...




hmm...that bit is from Revelations...and one blogger ties it in with Ezekiel...brb


ephesus...want to remember that...Rabbi is on and in the ephesus theater telling story of Paul and gospels...Artemis was worshiped here...but there was someone else too...Ezekiel 47 seems to have nothing to do with "no more sea" but rather a metaphor of a new old home for the twelve tribes!...brb...



quote


It was described by Antipater of Sidon, who compiled a list of the Seven Wonders:
I have set eyes on the wall of lofty Babylon on which is a road for chariots, and the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus, and the hanging gardens, and the colossus of the Sun, and the huge labour of the high pyramids, and the vast tomb of Mausolus; but when I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds, those other marvels lost their brilliancy, and I said, "Lo, apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked on aught (anything) so grand". [1]


unquote


that from wikipedia...brb...


Well, here the National Geographic compares the old and new seven wonders...and that's their pic...


There's another sacred place where a figure not unlike Jesus was worshiped...one of those sacred springs...epheseus?...brb...same place...nope...lost it...have to make a note!
Some lone nut burned the temple down and legend has it that Alexander was born the same night and he began the temple's reconstruction during his adventures.
I should never be embarassed!...my blog hereabouts is tame compared to the rampant punditry in the weblogs!!
DavidDavid
Tree in the Door






Saturday, January 26, 2008

Venues


I was thinking of venue in terms of a places to present one's art...like right now the ice skating competition is on and the rink is the venue. Ice Skater's need an ice rink...and the skates that glide on the ice.


Yet another down day with movie after movie...and given an extra day off, tomorrow will be more of the same...


Today's afternoon fare...tail end of Time Machine..."I'm sorry about your machine." "It was just a machine."


The third Jurassic Park....the Pterodactyls flying into the sunset...big music finish...a bit before the young ones were trying to eat the kid....there's this kinda the critter's are just doing they're thing and we got in their way...notion....and the mad scientist with their bringing them back did a bad thing...but isn't it wonderful they're back?....science in truth gets away with a lot so long as alls well that ends well.


The Amyityville Horror..took a nap....then the Whisperer....the notion of voices of influence from outside our heads...the tin hat paranoia...may not be so far fetched as it traces back in history...and indeed many of the Old Bible stories Greek Myths hinge on heavenly, or devilish, influences.....


British Comedies and now the Ice Skating.


If not for Movie venues , Horror movies wouldn't have a venue. The silver screen is a kinda ice rink too.


And now by some "alls well that ends well" science everyone can have a little bit of ice to perform on. This to say I'm quite happy with my little blog space! A place to put my pics and poems and thoughts.


But this isn't enough for most...the world of competition to be on big stages lures many. Thousand and thousands lining up for American Idol.


The defence department made the first web...it's important with war. And no one's sure just what it all it is....one can hope alls well!


Oh..I forgot the post pocalypse Zombie war movie...there seems to be a series of these...and may even be derived from a video game..it had that look.


A very dark two days of movies!!


New Journey to Center of the Earth coming Sunday...


The actor, Heath, I really liked in the Knight movie...didn't realize he'd died...and it's sad. Stories tell of his other movies, so I'll have to look out for them...one I think about ice skating. Glad there are big stages...as it brings out the best.


Photogs should start, I'm thinking, by choosing what venue they want to pursue, and then going out and getting the appropriate gear. Aspiring old Master painters wanted to have their work in museums and palaces and churches and the homes of nobility, to make works for "good and noble" people one said. Ansel Adams sought to have his work in galleries and museums, and all the rest I imagine too. These big places required the big 8x10 field camera.


For these little blog spaces the 12x is just fine! And I imagine while the nobility are perched in the balconies...in the foreground are the groundlings...and from hereabouts something for everyone.
quote
Stay, illusion!
Speak to me:
Cock crows
Hamlet
unquote


DavidDavid

Tree in the Door



Friday, January 25, 2008

Battle Blog or Brochure Blog?

Well, there's recruitment ad on TV now that shows the MC's drill team in different settings...atop desert monument bluffs...Goldengate Bridge...very pretty...well...very photog artsy fartsy...

The reason militaries are so fastidious, spit and polish, and disciplined, is that their job is often the extreme opposite.

So there a duality in the image, always, but at times the modern brochure military presentations ring hollow...last night the OC chopper show did patriotic rush up with a special chopper made for a guard unit...who reciprocated with a fine looking bronze of a Minuteman.

Bikers are notorious...and somehow of late they latch on to "big notes"...like trumpet fanfares...with flags flying...and I guess we're all just to forget that the first reaction to a biker is to cringe...they live the vida loca....next the guard unit will adopt LAInk...

But this brochure stuff is out of hand...just gone way overboard.

And I dont want to do a blog that's a brochure...

One glimpse of hereabouts is more "brochure" than anyone can ever communicate in any media...and to join in the tourist trade with my pics or thoughts would be okay...but I'll not do it if I have to shut down seeing things truly.

Which gets to what I was thinking about...Ansel Adam's and that club groupF64. With modern cameras that could take razor sharp detail...they thought to take pics that were true to the things themselves.

Pics earlier were romantic and sentimental with soft light, and even costumed figures to add atmosphere, more like paintings.

Adnan's taking pictures. ET is on. Pictures of Brittany...there's one on my door behind hanging coats from before I moved in...a young Brittany in brown short shorts, boots. short jacket. and holding out her arms like Jesus...

The 12x camera is a kinda new thing in the Valley...and I'm not sure if the photog community has caught on to it's import...which is that it takes video and stills and is inexpensive enough to be available to everyone. It doesn't take razor sharp pics...enlarged they're soft...but not unpleasantly so...and the video is good just enough for small TV...

It's hard to describe all it does...and the just fun it is to take the pics and clips...have to refer here to Fauna and Flora here for what it is capable of...tied together with the web it's a "media".

And I gotta wonder what groupf64 would make of it?

There's such a flood of day to day media...so many commercials...so few buyers..

I cant even figure what I wrote tonight!...and no pic.

Oh, I think what it is, is that the critters are showing me that the world they see day to day has no medias...

Garth Brooks is on next...I'll try to keep up!



DavidDavid
Tree in the Door

Thursday, January 24, 2008

The Mouse and the TV


Well, I woke up in the middle of the night...and was waiting for sleep to return...and the TV came on...by itself...an infomercial about Ethiopian exile Jews...kindof outcasts in their own country...and I listened awhile...and thought somehow the remote came on and by falling off it's perch in the change filled pickle jar...and it WAS on the floor when I found it and turned the TV off....then I woke up again...and waiting for sleep again...and the TV came on again!...oh...what is this, I thought..and leaned over the bed to look at the remote...on the floor still...face down...that is to say all the buttons were against the carpet...and if something...like Deer Mouse!...stepped on it it might turn the TV on!...so my cabin mates at the moment may be the ghost turning the TV on...

But...having thought on the "messengers" of the gods in last night's post...I recalled that the Poet had somethings to say about Mouse and the god Mouse was a totem for...brb...

APOLLO SMINTHEUS

The Mouse God

brb...

quote

Robert Graves, in 1955, 1969 (p. 56) wrote: "One component in Apollo's godhead seems to have been an oracular mouse--Apollo Smintheus ('mouse Apollo') is among his earliest titles..." Indeed, white mice were sacred to Apollo and supposedly they whispered secrets gathered from the earth in his ear.

unquote

quote

The Greek god, Apollo, for instance seems to have begun as the Demon of a Mouse fraternity in pre-Ayran totemistic Europe: he gradually rose in divine rank by force of arms, blackmail, and fraud until he became the patron of Music, Poetry and the Arts and finally, in some regions at least, he ousted his 'father' Zeus from the Sovereignty of the Universe by identifying himself with Belinus the intellectual God of Light. Jehovah, the God of the Jews has still more complex history.

Robert Graves The White Goddess

unquote

Apollo brought plague down on the Greeks in the Trojan War...hence is thought of as being in command of plague...and is prayed to for healing of same...which has something to do with a disease has within it it's cure, or maybe that's poisons...Graves talks about that too somewhere!

It's unforgivable that Poets can leave and not be held accountable for what they wrote!...

But, in The White Goddess, and the Greek Myths, and just about everywhere in his writing, he does stick with his notions and try to explain them.

Time was I would read anything about Graves with interest...trying to see if what I was seeing was being seen by others!...now there's so much on the web I just sorta ho hum!

One translation has it it's "mouse catcher"...which would make Apollo not a mouse but rather...a cat.

brb...

quote

After all, even the smallest house cat is a skilled hunter. The Greeks thought that Bast should have a twin brother, as Artemis had her brother Apollo. They linked Apollo with Heru-sa-Aset (Horus son of Isis), so Bast´s name was tinkered with to mean "soul of Isis" (ba-Aset) changing her into a form of this popular goddess. They also decided that Bast was a moon goddess, although she was originally considered to be the daughter of Ra and the "Eye of Ra".

http://www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk/bast.html

unquote

lemego find the Ethiopians...brb...

quote


The Falash Mura: Ethiopia's other tragedy Derek Brown, former Guardian correspondent in Jerusalem, reports on the uncertain welcome in Israel for the dispossessed descendants of Jews who converted to Christianity

http://www.guardian.co.uk/ethiopia2000/article/0,,181406,00.html

unquote

quote

An epithet of Apollo, derived from the Smintha, a city near Troy, or from sminthos; the mouse-exterminator.

unquote

DavidDavid
Tree in the Door

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

More TV


Rio Bravo...Red October...National Geo. with...Hogzilla!...and Stick Fighting....


Oh, gosh...sometimes just the sound of TV can irritate!...sorta like fevererish prickly skin...this cold will pass...


Catwoman had it that the Mau cats were Bast's messengers. The Ravens are said to be Oden's eyes and ears, bringing back reports of Earth to Valhalla.


I've been wanting to up a post on the Ravens...keep getting sidetracked...


quote


Bast was strongly revered as the patron of cats, and thus it was in the temple at Per-Bast that dead (and mummified) cats were brought for burial. More than 300,000 mummified cats were discovered when Bast's temple at Per-Bast was excavated. Egyptians believe, when a cat in the family dies, to show respect, they display the body outside of the home.


unquote


Well, that's a fit with what I thought about the mummified falcons. From wikipedia.


DavidDavid

Tree in the Door

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Movies


John Wayne..Big Jake I think...yeseterday is it was Matrix, Gothika, Catwoman, and Three Baseketball Games...


Catwoman was well crafted...wanted to look up the cat...Mue?....brb...


quote


Maus often possess very musical voices. They are known to chirp, chortle and emit other distinctly unusual vocalizations when stimulated.[5] Another behavior, quite common in happy Maus, has been described as "wiggle-tail." The cat, male or female, moves its back legs up and down, and appears to be marking territory, also known as spraying, but it is not actually releasing urine. Even veteran Mau owners are known to check after a joyous Mau does this little dance.[


unquote


from Wikipedia
DavidDavid
Tree in the Door


Sunday, January 20, 2008

Time to Write...


Bruce Willice in a science fiction space opera...with an alien opera singer!...then Underworld...which is kinda grim...Werewolves vs. Vampires...and they shoot at one another like in the Matrix movies...

Both movies have contraptions that open with three dimensional keys, like in the Lara Croft tale.

brb...

well...that didn't help..thought to find a seed for a post...

thought some today on the address book...seemed like a good idea to ask friends, and people I meet to put their email or address in my little book...but already I have more than I can manage I think!...mostly it is to share fauna and flora pics and clips...and to stay in touch...tomorrow I'll try to send off some things...but it is pretty labor intensive just to have an email conversation with one person!....and usually when I do the conversation fades and I think maybe I've said something to offend!

Chargers lost...but saw another Bobcat today.
"protecting the species"
what a strange movie!

DavidDavid
Tree in the Door

Friday, January 18, 2008

Death to Moby Dick



Bio of Gregory Peck on PBS...did Melville write that line?...brb...




quote




Like noiseless nautilus shells, their light prows sped through the sea; but only slowly they neared the foe. As they neared him, the ocean grew still more smooth; seemed drawing a carpet over its waves; seemed a noon-meadow, so serenely it spread. At length the breathless hunter came so nigh his seemingly unsuspecting prey, that his entire dazzling hump was distinctly visible, sliding along the sea as if an isolated thing, and continually set in a revolving ring of finest, fleecy, greenish foam.




unquote




That's beautiful! Who can write like that, or like the 19 Century Writer's today!??




But the death bit...brb...




quote




"Now, three to three, ye stand. Commend the murderous chalices! Bestow them, ye who are now made parties to this indissoluble league.... Drink, ye harpooneers! drink and swear, ye men that man the deathful whaleboat's bow -- Death to Moby Dick! God hunt us all, if we do not hunt Moby Dick to his death!" --Chapter 36 (The Quarter-Deck)




unquote




and that reminds me of something I heard recently...brb...




"I'll follow him to the Gates of Hell."








hec...where's Ahab when you need him...brb




Quote




And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD [be] God, follow him: but if Baal, [then] follow him. And the people answered him not a word.




unquote




Huel is on...and he is...where?....San Onofre State Beach...yes...that's a good beach!...good surf...Trestles.




Well, I'm reading about Ahab...some of it comes back from Sunday school..a good tale!




quote




18:43 And said to his servant, Go up now, look toward the sea. And he went up, and looked, and said, [There is] nothing. And he said, Go again seven times.
18:44 And it came to pass at the seventh time, that he said, Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand. And he said, Go up, say unto Ahab, Prepare [thy chariot], and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not.




unquote




McCain made a little smile when he said that...which reminds me of something...brb...




"a park is a park is a park...protected forever!"-Huel Howser...commenting on the freeway widening scheme at San Onofre.








I wish he'd run for Governor...




quote




A gun is a tool, Marian; no better or no worse than any other tool: an axe, a shovel or anything. A gun is as good or as bad as the man using it. Remember that. --Shane




unquote




The smile bit is in another Western I can't recall...something like, Smile when you say that..
Found the quote, from the Virginian...
quote
If you want to call me that, smile!
unquote




But I'm making a muddle of things!




DavidDavid


Tree in the Door




Park Closures

Arnold's closing State Parks to save money...shades of what I posted about an economic slow down benefitting the wilderness...like what happend in collapse of Soviet Union...what one article says has benefitted Cuba's wild places for decades!

Larry King on and news and...the Real Estate boondogle...apparently these Real Estate loans to high risk buyers was invested in by overseas money...foreign investors. President Jackson had something to say about that...brb...

quote

Should the stock of the bank principally pass into the hands of the subjects of a foreign country, and we should unfortunately become involved in a war with that country, what would be our condition? Of the course which would be pursued by a bank almost wholly owned by the subjects of a foreign power, and managed by those whose interests, if not affections, would run in the same direction there can be no doubt. All its operations within would be in aid of the hostile fleets and armies without. Controlling our currency, receiving our public moneys, and holding thousands of our citizens in dependence, it would be more formidable and dangerous than the naval and military power of the enemy.
If we must have a bank with private stockholders, every consideration of sound policy and every impulse of American feeling admonishes that it should be purely American.

unquote

Sometimes I come to the thought that a Foreign Government is in control...and it resides in Washington!

But that re search turned up that George Bancroft wrote the veto speech...and that name rings a bell from my jfk posts...and elseware...brb....

There's the Bancroft library which has a lot of Yosemite art and things...want to go there...they have one of the figures of the Panay Incident papers too...

A short post tonight..it's late...and no pic..

Oh...I dont quite know how these Parks can be "closed" as people will sneak into them...and use the picnic benches and what not.

Actually, I have something wrong...the State Parks aren't about development...and it was developement halted by economic anemia that ocurred in the Soviet Union..and seems to be the steady state of Cuba!...and that helped the environment restore and maintain.
DavidDavid
Tree in the Door

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Missing posts

Missed yesterday...and tonight...which is actually tomorrow now!!...cant find enough time...and awakeness for everything!!...but some thoughts I've had while working...I'll try to put them up tomorrow..today!

Monday, January 14, 2008

The Glass Wall




Thought a lot today about the report of birds flying into reflective windows on buildings...and too on the fifty eagles.




PBS with Oswald's Ghost, and now a story on Jackie...one bio of Jackie makes no mention of Oswald by name...and it's too bad his name can't be erased from history the way the Old Egyptians would do with a reviled individual!...then again the CTs, conspiracy theories, have it he didn't do it...




There was a show on too, Bone Detective I think it's called, that was about a mummy found in Egypt...and a place, the Falcon Catacomb...which I've read about before...it and the Apis Bull catacomb are very strange...but the Falcon one is a kinda fit with my thinking about the Glass Walls and the Fifty Eagles...lemeexplain...but first that catacomb...brb...falcon box pic is from British Museum web site here:




I need an explanation quote of why the Egyptians mummified these animals!...brb...oh I hate when that microsoft office pop up shows up!...brb...

a book...


The sacred animal necropolis at North Saqqara; The Falcon Complex and Catacomb: The archaeological report.
Davies, Sue and H.S. Smith. (Excavations at North Saqqara; excavation memoir; no.73)
Egypt Exploration Society, ©2005 135+ p. $180.00


brb....


quote


The Falcon or Hawk was one of a number of birds considered sacred by the ancient Egyptians. Regarded as the God of the Sky, and as the ‘BA’ or physical manifestation of Horus, the Hawk headed God, who was the embodiment of divine kingship. The Horus Falcon was the guardian deity and protector of the reigning pharaoh, and is frequently depicted with its wings protectively outstretched behind the head of the King. During the late period at Saqqara there was a catacomb specifically constructed for mummified hawks sacred to Horus and examination of some of these mummies has shown them to comprise a number of different types of birds of prey.




unquote


Well, that's a kinda fit with the show on TV...which said the mummified falcons were offerings from pilgrims, prayers, but I can't imagine them being killed to make the offering...so what was there?...when the Apis bull died it was mummified...but it was pampered while alive...and I wonder here if there was a kinda Falcon temple where they were raised and kept...or what in the world was going on!...this is all fairly recent..as the catacombs were discovered in 1969 and have had travails, robbers and such, that's postponed the research...the show said these mummies happened because the Egyptians, having fallen under Greek rule, the Ptolemies, couldn't properly worship Pharaoh, and substituted the sacred animals....I dont know...but back to the Glass Walls and the Fifty Eagles!!


Birds fly into the walls because they mistake them for being open sky...which is what they are reflecting. The Eagles mistook the fish parts in the truck for their usual meal...but conditions, the cold, and slime in the garbage heap of fish, ruined their feathers and them.


Mistakes happen!...story goes on the Old Romans is that they laced their wine with a sweetner...lead...which caused all manner of horrific mental disease...but how were they to know?


There are "millions" the show said, of mummified falcons in those catacombs. Maybe it was a pet cemetary!...but what drove the Egyptians to "fly" into the mental state to do these things!!??


Well, having puzzled over the Rubik's cube of jfk conspiracies..I guess I have an idea...but it's vague!


Everything outside our heads somehow gets inside...like our brains reflect the "sky"..and there's some old thinking on reflection by the theologians...lemesee if I can find that...brb...well...here's part of it:


quote


The arabesque can also be equally thought of as both art and science, some say. The artwork is at the same time mathematically precise, aesthetically pleasing, and symbolic. So due to this duality of creation, they say, the artistic part of this equation can be further subdivided into both secular and religious artwork. However, for many Muslims there is no distinction; all forms of art, the natural world, mathematics and science are all creations of God and therefore are reflections of the same thing (God's will expressed through His Creation). In other words, man can discover the geometric forms that constitute the Arabesque, but these forms always existed before as part of God's creation, as shown in this picture.




Oh...and leme add this from same:


In fact, Sufi Muslims believe that there is no distinction between the spiritual and material worlds. They also believe that the reason we cannot experience the spiritual world is that there are 'veils of concealment' that shield us from the perfection of the spiritual world. They therefore work to lift these veils, in order to become one with God while they are still on Earth. One of the ways that Sufi Muslims try to do this is to use the arabesque in depictions of the world.


unquote


What I was looking for was a saying that said Creation emanates from God like a reflection in a mirror...but I have no idea what search to use to find it, it being a quote from an old saint.


But there's another like this..from the Buddhists..brb...


quote


In the Gosho "On Attaining Buddhahood," Nichiren Daishonin writes: "Even a tarnished mirror will shine like a jewel if it is polished. A mind which presently is closed by illusions originating from the innate darkness of life is like a tarnished mirror, but once it is polished it will become clear, reflecting the enlightenment of immutable truth" (MW-1, 5). In this well-known passage, the Daishonin draws parallels between the tradition of mirror-polishing and the process of attaining Buddhahood.




And this one brings up the Lotus Sutra....


Another Gosho states: "A bronze mirror may reflect the body but not the mind. The mirror of the Lotus Sutra reflects not only our physical form but our inner being as well. Furthermore, the sutra mirrors, with complete clarity, one’s past karma and its future effect" (Gosho Zenshu, p. 1521).


unquote


brb with the Lotus Sutra...oh...I should put this back a few posts!!


quote


He reveals himself as the "father" of all beings and evinces the loving care of just such a father. Moreover, the sutra indicates that even after the Parinirvana (apparent physical death) of a Buddha, that Buddha continues to be real and to be capable of communicating with the world. The idea that the physical death of the / a Buddha is the termination of that Buddha is graphically refuted by the movement and meaning of this scripture, in which another Buddha, who "parinirvana-ed" long before, appears and communicates with Shakyamuni himself. In the vision of the Lotus Sutra, Buddhas are ultimately immortal.


unquote


that's from wikipedia...


and that's not the Lotus Sutra I was thinking of....I was thinking of when Buddha gave a sermon by just holding up his hand with his fingers making a kinda geometric spiral...it's in the Sacred Geometry books explaining Dynamic Symmetry..


Anyway..TV is a 'glass wall" we all "fly" into and go thud!


Kindof a long way to get to that!!


In one of Buddha's lessons he just held up his hand, like I described, but which is described better as "threading a needle"...which indeed is one of the many hand positions that signifying some teaching...I dont study Buddhism..I just recalled that "lotus hand position" lesson in the book Power of Limits illustrating the logarithmic spiral...I think I have that..close...to being right!...I've got the book..it's in the Bus...tomorrow I'll straighten this out!...


But the needle threading angle is interesting!...


When a hawk spread it's wings to protect, as depicted in Old Egyptian art..the famous diorite statue with Horus behind Pharaoh's head with wings protecting...it is called mantling...and they do it over their nests and chicks...I think...brb!...oh..and over their prey too...which is poetically exact in the Egyptian image...Pharoah is both prey and young of Horus.


Oh, enough for one nite!!


DavidDavid

Tree in the Door

Ship's Log


Well, the blog is a log...I mean...blogs started out being called web logs...a better name actually...blog has a connotation of being confrontational...or a kindof in your face journalism insomuch it can do everything a major media can do but it's in the hands of an individual!


And a curio last night after I signed off..an infomerical on how one can become a corporation...and aquire corporate credit...somekinda money making scheme with rags to riches testimonials...maybe we should all give up our corporal selves for the 'real existence'!


But to ships...ships are born when they are christened...the champagne bottle shatter on the prow and off they go...and I imagine then the first log entries are made in the logbook...and for the ship's life everyday a log entry is made. That's kinda neat...and it's how I've come to regard my blogs...Tree in the Door and Tree in the Door Fauna and Flora...they're logs.


Just sailing along...
Deleted a wiki quote here on the Star Trek ship Enterprise...better left where it was!...search star trek enterprise
And too, yesterday in the paper was the Alaskan story of the fifty eagles...they descended on a truck full of fish leavings from processing and got so gooeied up in the stuff they couldn't fly..and the cold was getting to them, and many died.
sigh.
And this...I just came back from reading some bird blogs...and one tells the tale of Bolsa Chica and the Glass Wall...a developer has put up a glass wall around the condos...so they can see the ocean I guess from their patios...and next door is a Nature Reserve...it's a salt water wetlands I've visited myself..I mean this is my home town...and the birds are banging into the wall...and story goes further about how birds are running into the glass skyscrapers and such...
ah...more tomorrow...




DavidDavid

Tree in the Door


Saturday, January 12, 2008

Entities


Well, my little dictionary says an entity is something that has a real existence...

Turned TV on when I came home and every channel it seemed was a shoot em up...story of the Alaskan Caribou on now...pretty neat...

Leme go get what the royal charter search found about entities....

Someone has to explain why there are mosquitoes!!...'where they go depends on which way the wind is blowing'...Caribou herd into the wind to avoid the mosquitoes!

There was this:

quote

A Royal Charter is a charter granted by the Sovereign on the advice of the privy council, to legitimize an incorporated body, such as a city, company, university or such. A Royal Charter is a kind of letters patent. In medieval Europe, cities were the only place where it was legal to conduct commerce, and Royal Charters were the only way to establish a city.

unquote

Then there was this from a "cartel" search...I was searching pre WW2 german cartels!

quote

A cartel is a formal (explicit) agreement among firms. Cartels usually occur in an oligopolistic industry, where there are a small number of sellers and usually involve homogeneous products. Cartel members may agree on such matters as price fixing, total industry output, market shares, allocation of customers, allocation of territories, bid rigging, establishment of common sales agencies, and the division of profits or combination of these. The aim of such collusion is to increase individual member's profits by reducing competition. Competition laws forbid cartels. Identifying and breaking up cartels is an important part of the competition policy in most countries, although proving the existence of a cartel is rarely easy, as firms are usually not so careless as to put agreements to collude on paper.[

unquote

All that from wikipedia.

Well, now, proving the existances of these entities is a problem!

quote

A corporation is a legal entity (technically, a juristic person) which has a separate legal personality from its members.

unquote

Along with our haunted minds, the Earth would appear to be populated by entities whose existence is invisible...and they're colluding!

The Alaskan Caribou and the African Wilda beast are a side by side.

And I got to thinking about the christening of ships and ships logs....for tomorrow! Oh, and dont letme forget the Chinese city that just makes eighty percent of the World's socks...that's colluding!
DavidDavid
Tree in the Door

Friday, January 11, 2008

Royal Charter


Day the Earth Stood Still was on...then Frankenstein meets the Spacemonster...click....Steve McQueen bio... and now Huel Howeser at Doheny Beach...which is indeed worthy of all his superlatives!!...when I get the Bus going, a camp there is in order...



Royal Charters!....found that considering the East India Company...and what I was thinking about was "birth certificates"...both for real people...and for incorporeal entities!!


A business license is a kinda "birth certificate"..


And I gotta wonder if the blog had a kinda 'birth' when I went through the sign up.


And today, of course as it always goes!...a story about the new national id cards in the newspapers.


Doheny is next to Dana Harbor...which submerged under rocks and wharfs some of the best tide pooling anywhere...at low tide one could walk like a hundred yards out in just a foot or two of water and rocky bottom, over all kinds of sea critters...great fun as a kid!


Tomorrow, how inanimate entities are animated by being yoked to animate entities...that would be us!


"Hello engine, I'm Jake Holman."


DavidDavid

Tree in the Door

Thursday, January 10, 2008

East India Company

Story in paper about new documentary...made by owner of The Capitals...it's about Nanking...and mentioned too that more films are in works in Hollywood about Old China...have to wait and see what they're like!

I've studied out the corporations before over in jfk...and one of the curios was the East India Company...one story went that George Washington flew the flag captured from the ship that the Boston Tea Party raiders threw the tea overboard from...and...well...it had red and white stripes and looked a lot like our flag...lemesse if I can find that...brb...

Oh...wikipedia in it's opening on American Flag has this...

quote

Though its design is similar to the flag of the British East India Company, no substantive connection has been established.

unquote

lemesee if I can get the George Washington Tea Party part...brb...

this might be worth following up...from wiki site...

quote

Sir Charles Fawcett was a British historian. He served in the Indian Civil Service whilst India was a part of the British Empire. He published a number of articles and books related to Indian history and was an expert on the British East India Company. His most famous article, in 1937, suggests that the design of the flag of the United States of America may have been derived from the flag and jack of the British East India Company.

unquote

Here's a bit on Prospect Hill...

quote

January 1, 1776 is the date that made Prospect Hill famous. On this day, George Washington ordered that a new flag be raised on a 76-foot schooner mast placed on Prospect Hill. This "Grand Union Flag" was the first true American flag, representing the united colonies. It was raised with a salute of 13 guns and loud huzzahs by the soldiers.

http://www.muldermedia.com/prospecthill/index.html

unquote

link is start of story...

And that's a neat site..and neat story!..and I dont know if the flag from the East India ship...three ships actually...was stolen and then used by Washington...they certainly look a lot alike...which is one of those historical bones of contention!..

But what I want to pursue tonight was the East India Company as a Corporation...carrying over from last nite's post....lemeget the charter...brb...

from wiki

quote

The Honourable East India Company (HEIC), often colloquially referred to as "John Company", and simply as the East India Company[1] or the "Company Bahadur" in India, was an early joint-stock company (the Dutch East India Company was the first to issue public stock). It was granted an English Royal Charter by Elizabeth I on December 31, 1600, with the intention of favouring trade privileges in India. The Royal Charter effectively gave the newly created HEIC a 21 year monopoly on all trade in the East Indies. The Company transformed from a commercial trading venture to one that virtually ruled India as it acquired auxiliary governmental and military functions, until its dissolution in 1858 following the events of the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

unquote

Well...here I found it...did "allen dulles east india" company search...I had happend on the fact that Dulles had an ancestor that worked for the East India Company and searched that out in a jfk thread...and found this back then...which is by the way!...from a very wild wooly conspiracy site...

quote

So to wind this up with a little anecdote: the governor of the East India Company in Bombay, India, was a man named Elihu Yale -- Eli Yale. Yale heard that a small college in New England, specifically in Connecticut, was having trouble getting started. He donated something like $10,000 (which was a lot of money in those days) to help found the college. And we have Yale University (comparable to Harvard) as a result of a gift from the East India Company, from Yale in Bombay, India. In his offices in Bombay (which still exist), on the wall there is the flag of the British East India Company. That flag has seven red bars and six white bars. In the corner it has a blue square, and in that square (or rectangle) is the emblem of the East India Company.
When the Bostonians attacked the ship Dartmouth and threw the tea in Boston Harbor at the Boston Tea Party, they took the flag down off the Dartmouth. It was the East India flag with the red and white stripes and the blue rectangle. They saved it as a memento of that battle. When George Washington went to Boston to assume command of the armies of the rebellion against England, he asked Betsy Ross to take the emblem off the flag and to put stars in its place. All Betsy Ross did that night was not create a flag. She simply snipped out the East India emblem and put in 13 little white stars. And the American flag is the East India flag. So when you hear people of what you might call "ancestral backgrounds" in this country demanding that we pledge allegiance to the flag, you may sometimes wonder if in their seances they don't see the East India flag, instead of the American flag, as the driving force.

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/USO/chp3_p2.html

unquote

Well, I thought to characterize that site...and just who puts it up...but it's such a mish mash!...

But there is something suspicious about the East India Company..and I say that from my reading about Old China...the opium war mess...and the Yale bit is a curio...oh I dont have time to join the conspiracy hounds!!

Suffice to say the Company...may be the Company!...and more than just the flag's look was copied!

DavidDavid
Tree in the Door

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Corporations

PBS history of Jewish Americans on...some of these names I know from my history studies...JFK...Old China and the Panay Story, which by the way has a web site up just devoted to it which I was browsing last nite.

But..Corporations!...that PBS bio of Andrew Jackson told of his regard for corporations...brb...

Here's his veto of the Bank of the United States...this whole story now for me is a muddle...but in thinking on this I just remember my corporation post at jfk!...brb...

quoteIquoted
the powers of external sovereignty passed from the Crown not to the Colonies severally, but to the Colonies in their collective and corporate capacity as the United States of America
unquote

That's buried in one of the long threads...but it seems to suggest the USA is a corporation!

Which are...brb...

quote from wikipedia

A corporation is a legal entity (technically, a juristic person) which has a separate legal personality from its members.
The defining legal rights and obligations of the corporation are: (i) the ability to sue and be sued; (ii) the ability to hold assets in its own name; (iii) the ability to hire agents; (iv) the ability to sign contracts; and (v) the ability to make by-laws, which govern its internal affairs.[1] Other legal rights and obligations may be assigned to the corporation by governments or courts. These are often controversial.[2]
Stewart Kyd, the author of the first treatise on corporate law in English, defined a corporation as "a collection of many individuals united into one body, under a special denomination, having perpetual succession under an artificial form, and vested, by policy of the law, with the capacity of acting, in several respects, as an individual, particularly of taking and granting property, of contracting obligations, and of suing and being sued, of enjoying privileges and immunities in common, and of exercising a variety of political rights, more or less extensive, according to the design of its institution, or the powers conferred upon it, either at the time of its creation, or at any subsequent period of its existence."[citation needed]

unquote

Well...corporations are some sort of languageNation...lemego see what a juristic person is

"The DNA of late nite television"...story of talk show...Steve Allen now on PBS...

quote

A juristic or juridical person is a legal entity through which the law allows a group of natural persons to act as if it were a single composite individual for certain purposes

quote

National Geo was doing a bit on the Hell's Angels...which is to say corporations are kinda like gangs!

Some how or another the Earth has become "populated" by "people" who aren't even "corporal"!!

I'll have to think on these "entities"...and consider if they are "sentient"!!...for tomorrow... I gotta get some rest!...and I cant think of a good pic...so it'll be a picless post!

DavidDavid
Tree in the Door

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Redwoods


Too busy with Fauna and Flora....anyway...lemesee what the futurist have dreamed up...continuing the Ocean City thread of last night...brb...


search: floating ocean city


brought this one up...which is pretty all inclusive....




Oh...Species is on..there in the sewers...and one of those critters that just wants to eat from the git go!...


brb...


Bluthton and something called Sea Britain...


glad I dont get comments!!


a blog quote:


Life on this planet could be very different very soon. The most basic of resources, space, will quickly run out as the exponential growth of the population continues.


unquote


Actually, the move to the Cities now is making space... the corporate farms are changing the rural demographic...thinking here of the protests in India by the small farmers who found an advocate, a woman quantum scientist I saw the other night on TV...brb....


hmmph..this search is getting skewed by the impact of genetically engineered crops and the India farmers...not what I was looking for...brb...


quote


From Bolivia to Cancun to Miami, this fall has seen major protests against corporate globalization across the hemisphere. Today we spend the hour listening to the words of Vandana Shiva. [Includes transcript]




unquote


Vandana Shiva...that's her name...and very pleasant to listen too...brb...


Aha! ... a doubleback...chipko is in earlier post....


quote from wikipedia's site:


Shiva participated in the nonviolent Chipko movement during the 1970s. The movement, whose main participants were women, adopted the tactic of hugging trees to prevent their felling.


unquote


Somewhere there is a pic of me standing in front of a redwood...baseball cap sideways...flannel shirt...Levis with the pant legs rolled up to make big cuffs...actually they were probably Penny's brand...and I'm maybe six or seven years old....Calavaras Big Trees if I remember right...it takes a bunch with joined hands to hug the trees hereabouts!!
On vacation at Prairie Creek, too when I was a kid...we drove off onto a logging road to explore...I cant forget the contrast between the corridor of Redwood forest and the logged over hillsides...and dont intend to ever!
Well...it took a few searches...but here's one for the ocean cities that's close to what I had in mind...the lily pad idea I'm referring too...I had thought to put orange trees in jars!...and to make a mat of some kind for strawberry fields...as Thor Heyerdahl discovered in his Ra Expedition that the reed boat smoothed out the waves....the salt air and storms is a concern!!
Which all remind me of someday of doing a simple experiment...a plant in a bottle! (oh...you can buy little sealed up terrariums...but an ocean floating plant in a big jar/bottle would need to be open for air...but the sunlight can be manipulated through a small opening...I had this all worked out!!...except I just realized the need for pollinators...bugs...I dont think anyone ever includes the bugs...which were the undoing of that closed up glass habitat experiment!!)
DavidDavid
Tree in the Door


Monday, January 7, 2008

Tinker Toy City


Firefox on...Clint Eastwook swipes the Soviets invisible jet...curious the front does look like the chisled Stealths!....


It's been awhile since I thought of my Ocean Cities...one thought was to contruct them like tinker toys...the dowels would be hollow tubes..and the hubs would be the city...nodes I guess they could be called...but I'm sure the web has ocean city ideas...did before...years ago!...when I was daydreaming this thoughtHobby...brb...took forever for Clint to get in the jet!...


well... a detour...tinkertoys and dna...


quote

It was the sort of realization that demanded a little distance, that needed someone who could look at DNA and see more than the genetic code. Seeman fit the bill. When he first thought of transforming DNA into molecular Tinkertoys, he was in an area of science far removed from genes. He was looking for a way to make crystals.




unquote


brb...


a bit about Mir...the Soviet space station...


quote


The cosmonauts and astronauts who were fortunate enough to travel to Mir were always impressed by its appearance. Regardless, Mir remained difficult to describe. Someone once called Mir a 100-ton Tinker Toy, a term that recalled Mir’s construction. Adding modules over the years, and then sometimes rearranging them, the Russians had built the strangest, biggest structure ever seen in outer space. Traveling at an average speed of 17,885 mph, the space station orbited about 250 miles above the Earth. Mir was both great and graceful—and incongruous and awkward—all at the same time.
In outward appearance, Mir has also been compared to a dragonfly with its wings outstretched, and to a hedgehog whose spines could pierce a spacewalker’s suit. NASA-4 Mir Astronaut Jerry Linenger compared Mir to "six school buses all hooked together. It was as if four of the buses were driven into a four-way intersection at the same time. They collided and became attached. All at right angles to each other, these four buses made up the four Mir science modules. … Priroda and Spektr were relatively new additions … and looked it—each sporting shiny gold foil, bleached-white solar blankets, and unmarred thruster pods. Kvant-2 and Kristall … showed their age. Solar blankets were yellowed … and looked as drab as a Moscow winter and were pockmarked with raggedy holes, the result of losing battles with micrometeorite and debris strikes over the years."




unquote


brb...


a building materal for the tubes!!


quote


Pliny Fisk III is an Austin-based green architect who discovered that flyash from coal-fired power plants, a troublesome waste product, could be used to make a substance stronger than Portland cement that he dubs "Ashcrete." Fisk developed a building technique that looks like a giant Tinker Toy. His hollow "Green Forms", which provide convenient conduits for plumbing and electrical lines, are made out of rebar (recycled steel) and "ashcrete." Fisk is a master at using local building materials and waste products in order to avoid the use of unsustainably harvested materials that must be shipped over long distance.




brb...


quote


(ICFs) are hollow foam blocks which are stacked into the shape of the exterior walls of a building, reinforced with steel rebar, and then filled with concrete. Insulated concrete forms combine one of the finest insulating materials, Expanded Polystyrene (EPS), with one of the strongest structural building materials, steel reinforced concrete. The result is a wall system of unmatched comfort, energy efficiency, strength and noise reduction.


unquote


brb...


Discovery Channels’ Extreme Engineering explores audacious engineering possibilities. The Extreme Engineering web site provides a view of some of the exciting projects engineers have worked on like the new subways for New York City and Hong Kong’s airport. And it also shows some possible future projects like a transatlantic tunnel (image above) which would float in the ocean and carry trains, pipelines…. Trains could run in a vacuum and travel at 6-8,000 kph (taking under an hour to travel from New York City to London. Of course there are quite a few engineering and economic factors to deal with to make something like that a reality.




unquote


Well...there's the tubes!...and same site has what I picked up a few posts back..


quote


Ocean thermal power plants, which generate electricity from the temperature difference between the tropics’ warm surface water and deep cold water, could be built on land in several hundred areas around the globe’s equatorial zones and also could be constructed as floating plants.…A recent Electric Power Research Institute study found sites in Maine, Alaska, California and Washington that had good potential for tidal power generation with production costs ranging from 4.2 cents per kilowatt hour to 10.8 cents. By comparison, the average retail cost of electricity to U.S. consumers in May was 8.64 cents per kilowatt hour.


unquote
pic is from wikipedia and search for: pyramid city tokyo
The Japanese seem to be ahead in the looking for innovative cities...and I recall they were building on the ocean.
Aside space for ornamental plants, pets, zoo, these plans dont seem to include farms...or wild places for Nature.
And they dont look like my plans...which I'll have to rework from my old ones!...I'll try to find time tomorrow to do some photoshop drawings....
But the thing to keep in mind is that three fifths of the world is covered by water...much of the land...like the Sahara...is desert...there's underground...visit Fresno's underground gardens!....and yet fewer and fewer can find room or means for a h0me....and agriculture cant get enough water...and wetlands are being depleted.
There are countless futurists sights about colonizing space...terraforming distant planets...there are places close by waiting for "colonization"...and much more easily 'terraformed' then say...Mars...which is very red in the night sky of late!
DavidDavid
Tree in the Door