Rumi: Say I am You

I am dust particles in sunlight.
I am the round sun.

To the bits of dust I say, Stay.
To the sun, Keep moving.

I am morning mist,
and the breathing of evening.
I am wind in the top of a grove,
and surf on the cliff.

Mast, rudder, helmsman, and keel,
I am also the coral reef they founder on.

I am a tree with a trained parrot in its branches.
Silence, thought, and voice.

The musical air coming through a flute,
a spark of stone, a flickering in metal.
Both candle and the moth crazy around it.
Rose, and the nightingale lost in the fragrance.

I am all orders of being, the circling galaxy,
the evolutionary intelligence, the lift, and the falling away.

What is, and what isn't.

You who know, Jelaluddin,
You the one in all, say who I am.
Say I am you.

The “un-American” Amish. Fox News needs to look into this.

In a meeting with an Amish Elder the conversation went something like this:

"The English (i.e. non Amish) think it very strange that your community does not permit telephones, credit, pneumatic tires on vehicles, paint on your houses, electricity or even curtains on your windows.

Why are these not permitted?"

The Amish elder responded with a smile,

"Well, if we had telephones, we would call one another on the wire and we wouldn't take time to visit in our homes.

We don't have credit because we think usury is wrong and if we buy something on credit, it really doesn't belong to us.

If we had pneumatic tires, we would drive by a neighbor's house at 50 mph and wave at them when passing as they sit on the front porch. In a horse and buggy, we stop and visit as we pass their house.

Without electricity, we are off the grid and not dependent on people we do not know and we like the more relaxed pace and ambience of lighting the oil lamps in the evening.

If we began to paint our houses, we would begin to compete on whose house looks better, creating conflict in our community. As it is, keeping our houses and barns clean and in good condition and good work is sufficient for contentment in our lives.

We don't have curtains on our windows because we have nothing to hide from our neighbors.

This way of living gives us a sense of freedom from things."

Genuine mimicry of an American genre

Remember when Godzilla first showed up using – despite zoom-in and zoom-out camera tricks - what looked like a doll knocking over the old Kener toy buildings with that classic howl? Then all those sequals, Destroy All Monsters, Mothra, King Kong versus Godzilla and Rodan?

I don’t remember reading or hearing anything involving a read-between-the lines commentary on Japan’s relationship with America nor Godzilla as a subtle message to American global theology.

If you are a reader and willing to consider the length and depth of a long essay, I recommend the essay linked below regarding a recognized and awarded Korean Film that came out in 2006 entitled The Host.

The dangers of biosecurity: The Host and the geopolitics of outbreak 

“The Host blurs the distinction between the monster and the society it ravages. From its inception the movie asks: Isn’t South Korea playing host, arguably against the interests of its citizenry, to the U.S. military and to foreign investors who have no interest in the nation’s social fabric?"

Fond memories of Doofus.

This current surviving generation of Reflublicans ... proof of what happens when you take yourself too seriously and then open your mouth.

Makes me fondly recall some of the stuff that came out of that Texan's mouth over the previous eight years. My interpretation of Dubya's thinkin:

They have a saying in Texas ... and I'm sure it's out here somewhere in the Payloose or someplace else ... "fool around me once and ... er,"

"fool me around once or twice ... er, "

"fool around with me or my wife ..."

Oh what the heck ...

Concepts are fungamental ... you don't need to go read no phillysophicles books or dial-a-prayers to figure out the basic stuff.

If this Socrater guy and Aristophupperlips came into the bar where I'm drinking and start spoutin all that foreign-illegal-Greekable-immigrant talk, I'd know how to put em in their place ... me and my brush-cuttin chain saw.

you dang intellechal's are presickley the reason why statecraft and good governance should come out of the end of a beer bottle and not some dang misoverestimated thespiaknickers class at UW or them other Kudzu-League schools.

You know which ones I'm talkin about - those schools where lots of thinking gets done but ain't none of them won a Rose Bowl in my lifetime.

Your's Truly from me 'n George,