For those who are not comic nerds, Project Rebirth is the government program that turned scrawny Steve Rogers into Captain America:
This isn’t a post about Cap though, it’s about me… and my efforts to finally begin to turn my life around. It’s not the first attempt over the years by any means either. This time, I really feel like something is different though.
It started with the factory job I took last year. I was old, out of shape, and pushed myself harder than possibly any time in my life trying to make it work. The carpal tunnel in both arms and crooked dealing around it finished the job, BUT not before it showed me that I wasn’t nearly as old and broken down as I thought. Far from it actually.
The other shoe dropped in mid-November last year. A few of you MAY recall my rant from the 18th of that month where I vented about a friend who had walked all over me then tried to gaslight me about it being my fault. Hardly the first time a situation like that has occurred in my life. Empaths are frequently targeted by narcissists and psychopaths. The difference was that I had already been working on emotional healing for a while, AND this time it was just so blatant at the end that there was no doubt the vast majority of the blame fell on her. It took a few days to calm down after that, (unusual for me), but you know what did happen once I did?
That about summed it up. Once it TRULY sunk in that my past drama was not all on me… that I spent far too much of my life letting toxic people tell me what my worth was and what I was capable of achieving… I got determined to flip them the bird. No more curling up in a defeated ball, no more excessive self-doubt, no more… well ALOT less anger at the state of things, etc… Just a determination to change for the better while staying grounded (lest I become the same type of braying ass that kept me down for decades).
Long diatribe cut short, burning internal motivation kicked in.
I started out trying to put together a… well, calling it a workout plan would be inaccurate as I’m including more reading, listening to a wide array of self-improvement material, meditating, continuing physical rehab for my back and wrists, etc… With all the other drama going on, that took all of December. I was planning on a New Years launch anyway.
Why New Years Matters:
If I hadn’t had so much going on, this would have been a separate post 20 days ago. Despite what some nay-sayers believe and spout, New Years *IS* a good time to start any kind of change work. There’s an emotional and spiritual energy of newness and renewal that hangs in the air on and after the start of the year. It’s a great source of external motivation to help get you kick-started.
People fail on their resolutions for two reasons. First, they think one slip is the end of it. That cookie killed the die instead of simply being a stumbling block. Second, they fail to look inside, ask why that resolution is important to them, and find the internal motivation to keep the ball rolling.
So Far So Good?
My personal “Project Rebirth” ended up being fairly ambitious and time consuming. Because of that, I’ve had my stumbling blocks over the past few weeks. Overall, it’s paying off. I’m building positive habits, my weight is down, my strength and stamina are up, I’m thinking more clearly, and my diet has improved.
Sadly, the biggest problem thus far has been my other half. I’ve felt like a cross between a roommate and hired help for a long time, and I made it clear that things needed to change in our relationship in multiple areas, or I had to make changes of my own. There’s movement in the right direction but it’s come with some major arguments the last few weeks. The last one reminded me far too much of the final days of my first marriage. I think it also served as a wake-up call. Time will tell.
Let’s Throw Some More Drama Onto the Pile!
In the meantime, I’m also still trying to figure out how to pull a miracle out of my hat with the Georgia house purchase lawsuit. We don’t have money to hire another lawyer, and none of the legal aid places will help us, either because we don’t live in Georgia or they (supposedly) don’t handle that kind of case.
We also found termites in the trees on the property right before the weather went to the ninth layer of hell in a handbasket. That means we have to get ahold of the landlord and have the house checked for termites as well as have him do something with the trees.
Oh yes, and let’s not forget the weather turning a million other things that need to be accomplished into giant pains in the arse. It’s 12 degrees F as I write this with a “feels like” temperature of 4 degrees. That’s -11 and -15 for you metric folks. 🙂 This has been the second coldest winter I’ve dealt with. It was so cold and windy overnight that we had snow flurries forming strictly out of the humidity in the air. First time I’ve ever seen that.
We definitely live in interesting times…
OH, and for those who were paying attention to the article title… Project Rebirth attempt number 1 was about 4 or 5 years ago. I didn’t make it half as far as I have this time due to self-doubt killing motivation back then.
This time around things are going much better, with the exception of the legal situation leaving me NO time to write the way (amount) I want to.
I’m going to be treading on sacred ground for some, and there are those who will also say that not being a Wiccan, I have no right to comment on the subject. I have two things to say there; first is that I’ve been a member of the overall spiritual community a LONG time. Second is that my aim is not to attack or invalidate anyone else, merely explore the issue from a different perspective. Also note that “Magick” is not a spelling error, it’s a differentiation between stage illusions and spiritual energy manipulation.
So, What IS the Witch Wound?
The Witch Wound is the idea that past and current discrimination against Wiccans has left psychic trauma in their souls and, depending upon who you talk to, the greater energy of the planet itself. Like nearly everything in the world nowadays, spiritual or mundane, the exact definition will often depend upon who you’re asking about it.
The idea itself is nothing new. People, mostly women, have been persecuted for “witchcraft” for centuries. True even before the Catholic church started spreading across Europe (weaponizing discrimination is an OLD trick). Likewise, I’ve listened to Wiccan friends talk about the impact of discrimination, as well as trauma they believe they’ve suffered in past lives. What IS new is that it seems to have been given a name within the last decade, and that some Wiccans have become… extremely focused… on the idea.
While I acknowledge that the past and present discrimination is real, and the damage it can do, I object to alot of how I see the whole situation being addressed. First, much of what I see online makes it seem like Wiccans are the only ones who have suffered this kind of treatment, or had to deal with the results of it. Let’s look at common symptoms of the Witch Wound:
The problem here is that anyone with any kind of unconventional belief system has dealt with the same thing. I don’t outright practice magick, (although I’m well studied on several schools), but even as an Empath, I’ve dealt with every single one of the issues above. I’m sure the same can be said of 90% of every minority spiritual group out there, be they ceremonial mages, Theosophy followers, Kabbalah students… all the way up to Sufis and many Jews in the case of some of those issues. After all, how many times have we heard an atheist ridicule the idea of prayer?
Hell, in my own case, some of the ugliness I endured was from Wiccans who looked down on me for not following their path. The oppressed become the oppressors in those cases, yet they failed to see the irony.
One of the few criticisms I have with modern Wicca (which, coincidentally bears little resemblance to it’s ancient roots), is that Gardner and Alexander both set up their respective schools of belief to play up the victimhood of the practitioners. That idea creates loyalty (only we understand you), but it does NOT elevate the spirit. Don’t get me wrong here. Every Wiccan practitioner, their art and beliefs are different. I’ve met “Witches” who are some of the most amazing, spiritually uplifting people you’ll meet. I’ve also met some that claim the moral and spiritual high ground but will throw curses at you for even looking at them sideways, much less disagreeing with them.
I’m getting off-track though. Everybody should be judged as an individual should go without saying. My bigger point was that constantly seeing one’s self as a victim is spiritually disempowering and draining both emotionally and physically.
There’s a Zen Buddhist idea that what you focus on is what you give power to. From personal experience, I can tell you it’s absolutely true. Being confident of who you are and growing as a person and spiritual being starts with letting go of negative self-images. Doesn’t matter if they come from within or from others. THAT can’t happen if you’re lamenting the problem and hating others for it’s existence. In either case you’re still focusing on the problem and anchoring it to you emotionally and spiritually. In short, healing (and spiritual growth) start by being willing to let go of the past.
The Problem With the Past Lives Aspect of The Witch Wound:
Past Lives are a very mixed bag to start with. I *do* believe they exist and have past life recall of bits and pieces of several lives going back to the sinking of Lemuria. Where we get into trouble with them is when we fail to consider that a “past life” might be something different.
One possibility is your subconscious trying to communicate an important concept to you when you’re not listening otherwise. When you refuse to listen to that little voice in the back of your mind, it typically escalates by giving you dreams trying to teach you what you’re ignoring. From there, an escalation to a fabricated past life is possible. An example might be a warning about a person you’ve met. You ignore all the other warning signs so your subconscious fabricates a past life where that person betrayed you because your subconscious knows you’ll pay attention to the message in that format.
Wishcraft can come into paly here also. A person feels small and unimportant in their life, so suddenly they recall being Catherine the Great or the Queen of France in a past life. Maybe they were, maybe it was their ego shoring itself up as emotional self-defense. I *do* find it interesting that many people claim to have been the same famous person in their past lives (Abe Lincoln for example), AND that “experts” like Bruce Goldberg who make their livings uncovering past lives will quickly explain that away via multiverse theory.
On a more spiritual note, a “past life” may also be a sensing or reading of residual psychic energy from a past person or event. Being a strong empath, I’ve experienced residual energy and how strong an imprint it can leave (you have NO idea how fun it is currently living in the path of the US Civil War).
By far the biggest problem with past lives, and by extension past life witch wound trauma, is personal bias in what one is seeing.
Case and point would be a former friend in Australia who is a pretty strong witch, and whom I had an extremely strong empathic connection with. She believed she was burned at the stake in France hundreds of years ago for witchcraft. Plausible on the surface. Witchcraft trials happened all over Europe. The biggest problem with her story is that the century this took place in, France didn’t burn at the stake for witchcraft. Beheading was the go to punishment. Burning at the stake was reserved for treason, and only became a witchcraft punishment 150 to 200 years later.
As it turned out, we shared that past life. *I* saw her put to death on a trumped up charge of assassinating the noble who oversaw the village and it’s surrounding territory. A neighboring noble had set up the entire thing as a power grab and used her and her role as the village herbologist as a scapegoat. She was so hung up on the idea that people disliked her for being a witch though that she’d never even consider any other possibility than her interpretation.
The lesson here is that historically “fact checking” an alleged past life with an open mind can go a long way towards disproving or clarifying it.
The reality is many persecuted for witchcraft weren’t actually witches at all. The Sisters Enchanted website put what I’ve read many times into clear perspective:
…This is, in fact, a very common ‘witch wound myth’ because, most of those who were accused of witchcraft through history were not, in fact, witches at all, certainly not in the way we view the word and idea of witchcraft and witches in today’s society.
By and large, these folks may have been women who were unmarried, who maybe could not get pregnant, who perhaps, gave birth to child after child who was not as expected or typical for the time. They may have been single women with their own means and money, healers, people who didn’t go to church. All sorts of different folks who were often just pinned for being different.
So, the wound we really inherit from these folk is more the wound of being afraid to speak up, being afraid to be different, being afraid to go against the grain, do something different, being afraid to speak your piece, speak your mind, or speak out against authority. All of that comes, generationally, mainly through women, through all time, all ages, from mother to daughter, to mother to daughter, and on, and on. And the wound continues. Sure, in 2022 for those of us who are younger than 40 or so, we may think things have shifted but this fear is still present in so many places in the world, including areas within the United States
It’s a good site if you’re a Wiccan or just curious. The article also goes into aspects of how Wiccans tearing each other down for differences in beliefs also perpetuates the Witch Wound.
Focusing on expanding one’s victim status, however real, into one or more past lives only deepens the focus on the negative though. THAT is the biggest problem with past lives as relates to the Witch Wound.
Eastern teaching (primarily Buddhism) is that one should ignore past lives (and magick) until one reaches the level of Bodhisattva. Until that point, one still has too many life lessons to learn and should be concentrating on the lessons currently in front of one’s self instead of looking backwards. There’s logic to it also. It’s like going to college with a full course load, AND trying to repeat every past class that you didn’t get an “A” in as well. That’s a heavy burden to dump on yourself.
The Idea of a Global Witch Wound:
Here’s where I start to object to the concept as opposed to merely reframing how best to look at it. The idea here is that the deaths of the (per some Wiccan sources) of roughly 60,000 “witches” during the middle ages left such a trauma on the world that there’s a scar of negative energy in the Earth’s energy. Again keep in mind that this aspect is NOT a universally held belief among Wiccans.
As a very strong empath, I can tell you there is alot of negative energy out there. It’s the idea that it came solely from the persecution of witches that I have to object to.
Follow the logic:
If 60,000 would-be witches, many of whom were not magick users at all, caused that much trauma, how much more would other, much larger events have caused?
World War 1 resulted in somewhere between 15 and 22 million military and civilian deaths, and 23 million wounded.
World War 2 resulted in 75 to 80 million dead, 3% of the entire world’s population. Up to 28 million of those deaths were due to war related disease and famine, a pretty horrible way to go.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki alone resulted in almost 200,000 deaths. Some resulted in people being instantly disintegrated and blasted into the concrete as reverse shadows, some dying much later from radiation poisoning and cancer.
I could go on with stats from the Bubonic Plague, the 1918 Spanish Flu, the Holocaust, Stalin and Mao’s purges of Russia and China, the killing fields of Cambodia, etc… all the way up to the worldwide deaths from COVID. The current climate around political and social issues in the US and Europe is also incredibly toxic and generating a tremendous amount of negative energy (something I believe is deliberately engineered by those controlling the message). I hope I’ve made my point:
The deaths from the witch hunts, while terrible and absolutely wrong, are small compared to several events since, and any psychic scar is the result of ALL of it. Ergo Wiccans and everybody else would be better served by focusing on healing the world as a whole instead of seeing themselves as the sole victims of a world out to get them.
That doesn’t mean we all have to completely forget everything that’s happened to us. It does mean that we have to make the conscious choice to move past it and elevate ourselves though. We have to make the choice to no longer be held hostage by our pasts and to choose to take control of those pasts.
If somebody like CM Punk, a wrestler, can grasp this concept, isn’t it time the rest of us did as well?
If we can’t, humanity (in my personal opinion) is going to self destruct within the next 50 years, maybe even to the extremes of the stories of the Bhagavad Gita or the end times of the Bible.
As I suspected, the inability to comment in blogs directly turned out to be a privacy and security issue. Specifically, it turned out to be an issue with the DuckDuckGo browser. Apparently it’s seeing something in terms of tracking or data-mining within the comments box that it does NOT like.
In the browser’s defense, this would hardly be the first time that one of my security programs didn’t like something happening at WordPress. I had to stop following a few premium plan sites in the past because their plug-ins were up to all manner of no good. I’m not blaming the site creators either. There’s no telling what people will slip into software nowadays. 10 years ago, tracking and data mining was immoral and a violation of privacy and trust. Now selling your personal information is a god given right to most in the I.T. field.
I’m going to be following up with both WordPress and DuckDuckGo to find out exactly what the hell is going on here. *IF* WordPress is getting that invasive, it’s all the more reason to move on. If DuckDuckGo is over-reaching in classifying things as intrusive, well it’s time to switch browsers then.
First Mozilla, Now This:
I switched to DuckDuckGo’s browser because Firefox became an unmitigated pain in the ass. It’s privacy plug-ins often over-reached and made sites unusable, and over the last year, Firefox wouldn’t function at all due to some kind of version conflict between the main browser software and it’s plug-ins. For you gamers, it’s very similar to a game getting updated, which breaks the mods, which makes the game unplayable until the mods are updated.
Oddly enough, Firefox seems to be working again. It looks like for the time being, I’ll have to switch back. I refuse to use MS Edge or any of the Chrome based browsers. They all track and data mine EVERYTHING you do and “say” online.
The lesson here is something I was taught VERY early in my college Cyber-Security classes; privacy and security are critical, but so is the user’s ability to actually use the network. Maybe the TOR Browser is the answer, maybe it’ll be worse.
And In Other News…
I’ve mentioned a few times about being up to my eyebrows in real world stuff. First, we found termites in the trees in our yard, and we’re trying to get the landlord to deal with the issue. That’s included extra house cleaning and such so there’s zero reason for the landlord to try to punish us for the stuff we’re trying to get him to address. I doubt it would happen, but the last few years have taught me to prepare for anything and be slow to put my trust in anyone no matter how nice they’ve been thus far.
Part of all this cleanup also includes a MASSIVE every year cleanup of the leaves dropped by the 17 giant oak trees on the property we’re renting. Each year, I fill up the flood control ditch along the street to a height of 5 feet tall, 5 feet wide and roughly 50 feet in length… 3 or 4 times! It’s a full time job the entire fall and into winter, even with a commercial grade leaf blower.
I’m also still trying to find out what I need to do to prepare for the court hearing on the 24th to prevent the judge from throwing out the other half of the Georgia house purchase case without it even going to trial, like he did with the lawsuit against the home inspector. Personally, I think he’s going to do it anyway, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to make it easy for him.
The big problem here is that we can’t afford a lawyer any longer and all the free legal aid groups only want to help you with a Georgia legal issue if you actually live in Georgia. That leaves me trying to navigate this all by myself. Make no mistake, the law is NOT designed or intended to protect the poor.
On the personal front, I’ve recovered as much as I’m going to from the carpal tunnel syndrome I got last year. Thus I need to get my butt back to work. Damned if I’m going back to work at that factory though.
There’s also trying (thus far in vain) to get my writing and other blog active again. I swear the more I try, the more chaos erupts around me.
Also, after that fight I had with a former friend who kept trying to gaslight me and blame me for their drama (mentioned in a November blog post last year), there’s been a major shift in my outlook on life and myself. I no longer take baseless criticism to heart and let people tear me down and fill me with self doubt. I’m still wise enough to honestly evaluate how much of anything I truly contributed to an issue. Without that introspection, one is only a narcissist. At any rate, it’s led to a great deal of reevaluating everything in my life. I even had to sit down with my spouse, vent about things we’ve been at odds over for years and say, either they change or I need to make changes. It’s been a wild couple of months but thus far everything SEEMS to be changing for the better.
Ironic that this happens on a day where I make a post talking about the ills of WordPress.
I am currently unable to comment in any blogs, including my own! I get the “Leave a Comment” line, but no box beneath it to actually type in any comment. The only way I can respond at all is via the “notifications” page of my own blog.
Not the first time I’ve had this issue. If I recall correctly (it’s been a while), the last time it happened, it was my security software blocking my ability to comment. That doesn’t put WordPress in the clear however, as the software blocks sites and parts of sites that make malicious use of data, including selling it to third parties or allowing data mining.
I can’t rush to any conclusions yet. I haven’t had time to properly investigate the cause. I’m NOT ignoring folks though.
More Irony though; the Thursday Tech post today was going to be on data mining.
Renard’s most recent post in his own blog (free plug, he’s a great writer) inspired this one. He’s a big fan of WordPress while I have a slightly different take on it. 🙂 My view is fairly balanced. I see good and bad in WordPress, as is true with everything in life.
The Reader and Follow options are some of the best things about WordPress, for example. They allow networking and discovering of new and interesting blogs to read.
The feedback system (Likes and Comments) are, in my opinion, a mixed bag. On the surface, they’re great and allow for interaction with readers. The flip side however is that a large part of the WP community sees them as no different than Twitter, errrr “X” likes and follows; something to be traded to feign popularity while caring less about others’ content. To be fair, that’s NOT on WordPress itself, but is a reflection of society in general. I can’t think of anything that WordPress could do differently to encourage more genuine interaction.
Make no mistake though, people who genuinely put real effort into their writing and are hoping to grow it into something more WANT that interaction and constructive feedback.
The Mechanics of WordPress:
Personally, I see only a few things wrong with WordPress in this regard. Many people get upset with all the changes that keep getting made. I’d argue that the real problem there isn’t actual change, it’s the way it’s handled.
First would be a lack of documentation on how to use new changes. WordPress, like many software companies today, seems to not care and just waits for users to come either figure it out on their own, or post their own “how to” videos on YouTube.
Second is that changes are often rushed into service before being properly debugged. Bugs are always going to be an issue nowadays, just by virtue of the sheer amount of code in modern programs. HOWEVER, the amount of performance crippling bugs in the initial release of the WP Block Editor (as an easy example) was insane. Your main body of users should NEVER be your beta-testing guinea pigs. Bugs like the broken spell checker should have been fixed first thing also.
Lastly on this issue is that the changes all seem to be good ideas poorly executed. They’re done in ways that rarely make things easier for the user, nor allow them the creative / design freedom claimed. I worked with true “WYSIWYG” (What You See Is What You Get) site building software 35 years ago. You want a picture on the left side and text on the right? Place two side by side boxes and fill them with content. It was even easier than working with MS Publisher. WordPress makes that HARD, and that’s IF your individual theme will even allow that kind of creativity. Typically only the premium (paid or subscription) ones will even come close.
And Then There was JetPack…
I don’t blog on a mobile device so I’m not fully qualified to offer an in-depth opinion here. What I can say is that based on the wide-spread criticism, JetPack is the Block Editor rollout all over again. Even Renard seems to hate it and he never has anything truly bad to say about anything. By all accounts, it’s a bug ridden, poorly implemented train wreck.
Will they get it fixed at some point? No doubt they will. They (eventually) fixed the block editor, and we adapted to it as well. Should the user base once again be forced to play beta tester though? Absolutely not.
But What About The Alternatives?
Make no mistake, there are plenty of alternatives out there. How good they are really depends upon the individual user and their goals.
Wordpres.org is the software for self-hosting a blog with another web-hosting company. I went this route with my adult blog for erotica so that I could have more creative freedom than WordPress.com allows with that kind of material. It was far cheaper than a comparable plan here… for the first year. Site setup was some legitimate work, but not much more difficult than site building here.
The drawbacks are that there’s no connection to WordPress.com’s social networking tools. Your blog / site will never show up in the Reader, and you can’t like / comment here with only a self-hosted site like that. Ironically, I get more views there than I do here according to the SEO tools. THAT despite not doing anything there in 6 months! The other drawback hit me a week ago. Site auto-renewal hit, and I was billed just over $400 for the next year’s site hosting and reserved domain name. That’s as bad as buying a maxed out WordPress.com plan while not on sale. Given how easy it is to transfer a WordPress.org site to a new host, I can guarantee you SiteGround will NOT be getting my business next year.
As for other sites, there are some like Medium that promise you to be able to make money off of what you publish based on views (similar to YouTube’s pay plan), but they make you have a paid subscription AND you’ll actually be competing against some big name professional authors. At the very least, you’ll have to plan on alot of networking within the site and on social media platforms to build an audience.
There are other alternatives like Disqus that I haven’t had a chance to investigate YET. This is high on my “to do” list for the new year however. Disqus in particular brags it has the highest level of user interaction of any “blogging” site out there. Keep in mind that doesn’t necessarily mean the interactions are genuine however. They may be just as much ‘social media syndrome’ as the likes trading here is. I also have no idea what level of site customization or post formatting tools they have. When first launched, Disqus was very primitive in those regards.
I intend to investigate several alternatives to WordPress over the next few months, and as I do, I’ll post my findings here.
In the mean time, keep in mind that WordPress may not be perfect, but it’s not the devil either. 😉
PS: A Tech Thursday and a personal update coming later today as time allows. I’m up to my eyeballs in real life stuff.
The opening scene there is deceptive, as is true with many YouTube videos.
The trick to this working is that multi LED lights work on a “series” circuit, like old Christmas tree lights. If one bulb goes out, the whole strand is dead. The video shows you how to create a ‘jumper’ over a dead LED so that you can keep using the bulb.
Pay attention to the video’s admonitions about not zapping yourself also. Wrapping electrical tape around the tweezers creates an insulator to protect you from the electrical current (as one example).
For those who are relatively new, “Tuesday Trash” is the day and topic heading I use to vent about social issues. I do my best here to stay civil while not pulling any punches.
An article on Boomers and their piles of prescription drugs pushed on them by doctors, and the comments section about it, reminded me of a scene with Lex Luthor. It helped that the scene was actually mentioned in the comments, LOL. While it may seem a little far-fetched, humor me and read on. The example below is so spot-on it’s actually scary.
Big Pharma, Doctors, and Lex Luthor:
Comments on that article correctly mentioned that seniors have so many prescriptions because doctors hand them out like candy. Part of that is the legalization of drug advertisements in the U.S. People run to doctors hoping for easy cures for everything because the TV commercials promised them that. Doctors are the other half of the problem though. The opioid crisis thoroughly illustrated that. While there’s been a little reform, doctors still get most of their continuing education credits via “seminars” put on by the giant pharmaceutical companies. What are they being taught there? That their sponsor providing them with free continuing education has a pill for every issue being addressed at the seminar, including the side effects caused by the initial drug. Doctors’ continuing education is often little more than a giant commercial at some luxury resort or hotel. Does this sound remotely like it’s in the patient’s best interest?
Where it REALLY turns sinister in my opinion is that none of the drugs are ever designed to actually CURE anything. It’s ALL “treatment” and “management”. Take you time, and ponder the next sentence carefully. We could cure polio in 1955, but despite all the scientific advances, the mapping of the human genome, etc… we haven’t outright cured a disease in the 69 years since.
I’ll let Lex explain the reason why:
From Superman: Doomsday (2018)
If you think that’s far fetched; putting profit above people… Corporations have done it for at least a century. ”Shareholder Primacy” (ie duty to maximize shareholder return above all other considerations), is de facto law in the U.S. and elsewhere. This is largely due to lawsuits against corporations by shareholders unhappy with their rate of return and judges ruling in the shareholders’ favor.
Unending corporate greed is also why natural cures are downplayed and never investigated by big pharma. You can’t patent something that exists in nature. No patent and no profit equals no interest in investigating it.
I’m not advocating blind acceptance of homeopathic remedies either. There’s snake oil there as well. More importantly rather or not a legitimate homeopathic treatment works for you specifically will depend upon your unique biochemistry, diet and exercise level. Now that I’ve got my disclaimer (aside from stating I’m not a health care professional and to consult a doctor, yada yada…), let’s get back to Lex…
FOR FUN:Luthor Mirrors A Conspiracy Theory Regarding Trump, Years Earlier:
Here’s where we have a little fun. Keep in mind that this is indeed just a conspiracy theory batted around by a few people out there. I heard it more towards the beginning of Trump’s first campaign. Given that everybody likes to point at all the things the Simpsons coincidentally predicted though, I thought it was worth a mention.
First, the basic conspiracy theory; it’s that Trump ran for president as a trojan horse candidate intending to do the most damage possible to the Republican party. This was based on his formerly being friends with so many of the New York City left-wing crowd. Also on a 90s interview where Trump gave hints of political aspirations, and supposedly said that if he ever ran, it would be as a Republican because that party’s voters are all idiots and will believe anything they’re told.
So the theory is that Trump and his Far Left friends got together and cooked up a plan where Trump would run and feed the Pub base all the highly toxic rhetoric it could handle, turning the public against the Republicans in large numbers. Conspiracy theorists debate what happened after that. Maybe Trump wasn’t supposed to get elected, maybe he was (Hillary isn’t popular among most of the Left). Likewise how much of Trump’s mad with power routine was just an act and how much was real has been debated. Regardless, I doubt Trump expected to end up a Pariah on almost all sides.
OK, here’s a scene from Justice League Unlimited back in 2006. In the show, Lex Luthor and Amanda Waller put together a scheme to rehabilitate Luthor’s image and have him run for U.S. President. This was all in an effort to provoke Superman into over-reactions and discredit the Justice League. It was working quite well also, even leading to a fight between Shazam and Superman that destroyed a housing project. The Question (the League’s resident conspiracy nut) shows up at Luthor’s offices to stop Luthor, having figured out where it’s all going:
For those who want to skip the lead-up banter, the actual relevant dialog starts at 1:30 into the scene.
Foolish, faceless man. My campaign is a farce; a small part of a much grander scheme. President?!? Do you know how much power I’d have to give up to be President? That’s right conspiracy buff; I spent 75 million dollars on a fake presidential campaign, all just to tick Superman off.
Lex Luthor
True in Trump’s case also? We’ll never know. I will say that the only way I could see it being true is if the Far Left promised Trump that he’d become their own golden child after he damaged the Republicans and then did a “Face Turn” as it’s called in wrestling; turning his back on his old supporters and announcing he’s seen the light.
It all sounds improbable, but there have been a few even stranger conspiracy theories that have turned out to be true. On the small chance this one is true, we’ll likely never know, unless Trump pulls that face turn. I can say that Trump has done more damage to the Republican brand than any politician on either side in my lifetime.
It is interesting that Justice League Unlimited painted a similar theory just under 10 years before Trump’s initial campaign, and the surfacing of the conspiracy theory.
Lex isn’t wrong about power there either. Your typical multinational corporate CEO has enough economic influence to buy or sell the average Washington politician before breakfast, AND can remain a power behind the throne, never directly dealing with the fallout of their schemes.
Ideally, the goal of a “traditional” martial arts school, even if the style is relatively new (such as Jeet Kune Do or Krav Maga), is the development of character as much as the ability to defend one’s self. How does that happen?
If I can train your body, I can open your mind. If I can open your mind, I can open your heart.
Sifu Fong. via Jim Brault
But What Does That REALLY Mean?
In simple terms, it’s a progression of personal development. A new student comes in to a school and begins training. Let’s assume, for the sake of following the entire path, that they’re looking for a means to defend themself, much like Daniel in ‘The Karate Kid’.
The student starts out awkward and embarrassed by their lack of skill. As they progress, their skills, conditioning and self-confidence improve. With a positive message accompanying the training, the student’s confidence not only becomes outwardly visible, it takes deeps roots internally. They carry themself more confidently, which results in them looking like less of a target, and being bullied less.
When they walk away from a fight, it’s not out of fear, it’s because they no longer have anything to prove. It’s a choice, not a fear-based reaction.
Now, if you want to know how respect for others, compassion and a larger world view fit in with physical violence… It’s an acknowledgement of a basic truth; evil, while rare, is real, and sometimes has to be opposed. Violence should always be the last resort, and only used in response to violence.
But What is the Exact Philosophy?
THAT is the complex part, as the various martial arts are governed by a wide array of philosophies. Taoism and Buddhism’s various offshoots being the most common in Asian arts (but not the only philosophies). The things that all these philosophies do have in common though is that their followers aspire to higher ideals and have a duty to society as a whole beyond their own selfish desires. It’s when you take the soul out of the art that you end up teaching strictly violence, like the Cobra Kai dojo.
If we want to philosophize, it’s the same conclusion that Socrates and others have come to in answer to the question “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” (who guards the guardians?):
Socrates proposed a guardian class to protect that society, and the custodes (watchmen) from the Satires are often interpreted as being parallel to the Platonic guardians (phylakes in Greek). Socrates’s answer to the problem is, in essence, that the guardians will be manipulated to guard themselves against themselves via a deception often called the “noble lie” in English.[7] As Leonid Hurwicz pointed out in his 2007 lecture on accepting the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, one of Socrates’s interlocutors in the Republic, Glaucon, even goes so far as to say “it would be absurd that a guardian should need a guard.”[8]
Wikipedia
Is some level of obligation to something greater than yourself really a lie, noble or otherwise, though? That would imply, by extension, that morals in general are a lie. Personally, I reject that idea. Individual rights are important, but so is the overall good of society.
Art of the Week: Capoeira
Long before Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu took root in Brazil, there was the martial art of Capoeira.
Capoeira is an acrobatic form of martial arts created by slaves in Brazil. Due to the severe laws that the slaves lived under, Capoeira was disguised as a dance.
I’m going to interrupt myself here to say that my history lesson here is just a thumbnail view. Those interested in learning more about this fascinating and unique martial art should start with Wikipedia’s page on the history of capoeira. It does a surprisingly good job on the subject. Normally I find their articles on martial arts to be quite wanting.
Capoeira, like most of Brazil’s slaves, can trace it’s origins back to Angola. Capoeira adapted to the rules Brazilian slaves had to live under though. Fighting or any type of combat training by slaves was forbidden, so Capoeira became disguised as a dance. Slaves were often shackled, so the art also increased it’s emphasis on leg techniques and headbutts.
Part of Capoeira’s being disguised as dance meant that training or matches (Jogos in the proper terminology of the art) were and still are held to music, which set the tempo for the Jogo as well. The music traditionally is with drums and a unique instrument called the berimbau, also from Angola.
To give you all an idea what a match complete with music looks like, I’ll introduce you to the movie that first made me aware of it: Only the Strong.
The movie is a stereotypical 90s martial arts flick with Mark Dacascos playing a Green Beret trained in Capoeira who returns from Brazil to Miami to find his former High School overrun by a gang and ‘difficult’ students. He offers to train the difficult students in Capoeira to give them the self-discipline and self-respect to avoid the gang. Needless to say, this leads to conflict with the gang.
What you see in that scene is intermediate level stuff. I’ve seen practitioners do head over heels summersaulting axe kicks and other moves far more wild than those show there.
What makes Capoeira effective in a real fight is that many of it’s kicks are so unconventional and you can be hit at nearly any angle:
If you still have any doubts though, check out it’s use in MMA fighting:
Capoeira is a beautiful art with a long and deep cultural heritage that deserves more time in the spotlight than it’s thus far received.
Long time readers will recall I’ve been looking for an ideal writing program for even longer than a quality platform. I tried Scrivener, and I know it has it’s fans. I found accessing all it’s various options no less clunky than switching between various documents in MS Office or similar programs though.
M$ Office (no the dollar sign is NOT a typo) has always annoyed me for multiple reasons though. First, if your computer’s drive fails, your chances of being able to reinstall Office afterwards without buying a whole new copy are slim to none, especially after there’s been a new edition released. M$’s answer there is pay for their never ending subscription service for Office. Then you’ll be paying forever AND have all your work stored online where it will be data-mined to death.
MS Word in particular drives me nuts because of it’s auto-format options. It constantly does what I don’t want it to do, and if I somehow get it to turn off the auto-format, it still does the opposite of what I want.
The Answer: Returning to an Old Friend
A holiday sale reminded me of a former favorite that I’ve since returned to. Ages ago, I used Corel WordPerfect Suite. I took advantage of it’s free trial and then bought the Home and Student Edition, which was on sale for $40 at the time. Let’s see M$ ever put one of their productivity programs on sale at anywhere near that price.
Here’s why I LOVE Corel WordPerfect:
1: No “smarter than you” auto-formatting
2: Point and click cursor placement. Yes, that’s right. Click anywhere on your page and that’s where the cursor goes to. You can immediately start typing right there. No fighting through arcane combinations of tabs and returns to get your cursor close to where you actually wanted it with MS Office. Just click and go.
3: Easy inserting of boxes for graphics. Just size out the box, put a picture of some sort in it, and the box will automatically size the picture to fill the box. What’s more, WordPerfect will format any regular text to work around the box or boxes
4: It has drop caps and all the other features that MS Word has as well.
If I had to put it in simple terms to give it a one sentence description; WordPerfect takes the best options of MS Word and MS Publisher, blends them flawlessly and then improves on their functionality.
An added benefit is that Corel gives you a discount if you decide to upgrade to a new edition. That’s typically about 50% off. Think Microsoft will ever do that for customers? In the past Corel has also been much better than MS regarding allowing reinstallation. I haven’t been able to test that with my new version. I will say that the physical DVD of WordPerfect that I bought on Amazon allows installation on two different computers though.
The Only Drawback for Some People
That would be the “dated” interface at the top of the screen. While M$ has gone on to make their toolbars fancy and colorful, Corel has stuck with the basics. Thus, the toolbar looks like an older version of Word. I will admit that MS’s larger buttons for the more common functions helps. I’ll also say that Corel’s word processor doing what I actually want it to do helps even more.
Other Advantages:
WordPerfect can import all major document types, including Microsoft’s old and new formats, and save in those or it’s own format. It can also save as a PDF file right from the main save menu. Margins are also easily adjustable right from the document screen instead of having to go through a menu and pop-up window.
The various editions are nearly identical to Microsoft’s. Home and Student contains WordPerfect, Quattro (it’s spreadsheet program), Presentations (it’s version of PowerPoint), WordPerfect Lightning, which is a document viewer and I think allows for attaching suggested edits, AND Corel Aftershot, which is a photo editor on par with the light versions of Photoshop (and very easy to use).
The standard and professional editions have options similar to their Microsoft equivalents also, as well as a few other unique and cool features, like better collaborative editing controls, and a built-in legal document formatting assistant.
Reviews Don’t Lie:
Conclusion:
Corel is now my goto office suite. Ages ago I was able to do professional quality desktop publishing (when that was still a thing), and the products have only gotten better. Free advice? Tell Bill Gates where he can stick his overpriced productivity software and join me.
Silk Chatters 