Communities versus networks

Unfortunately, true community in our modern world is hard to find for soldiers and civilians alike. Instead, we increasingly live out our lives as members of networks. This transition from community to network life is truly at the heart of the increasing feelings of loneliness, anxiety, and anomie that many people experience in the modern age. We’ve never been so “connected” — and yet so isolated at the same time.

~ Brett McKay from, Communities Vs. Networks

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Ethics, Integrity, Courage, Dignity

• A man does the job no one else wants to do.
• A man lives with integrity every day.
• The most important form of courage is moral courage.
• Live with quiet dignity.

~ “Atticus Finch”

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Hobie poetry

Soul Sailer

Hobie Cat, Hobie Cat, where are you bound?
Silently streaking over the sound.
Your sails standing high,
Proudly contrast the sky,
It’s not just a boat;
I know it can fly!

When she gets up to speed,
She’ll sing you a song.
But if you’re weak in the knees,
You’d best not go along.
For there’s always a thrill,
And sometimes a spill!
Hobie Cat, Hobie Cat – go where you will!

The world that we know
dwindles down to size
on the shoreline behind us.
We sail along on the song that
is the wind.

~ Bruce W. Constantine

To the best of my knowledge, this is the only piece of poetry my father wrote. Whatever possessed him to pick up a pencil and write this, I’ll never know. However, I would bet that it was the result of long hours chatting with one of his sailing buddies until they had it down pat; Followed by him writing it out. I see no errors or erasures, and I know his handwriting well enough to suspect that he simply wrote it out straight through. The last verse – oddly indented – looks like it was written separately, or at least later than the first two verses. I think it’s the better of the three, and I fear it might be a song lyric… but I’m not searching the ‘Net because I like the idea that he wrote it.

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How does life fat thee?

This entry is part 7 of 25 in the series M. Eades' Blog

A group of scientists from multiple institutions looked at a number of other reasons that we could be in the midst of an obesity epidemic that have nothing to do with diet and exercise, or as they call them, the Big Two. They make the case in an paper published online in advance of print in the International Journal of Obesity that so many have so fully accepted the Big Two that pretty much no one has bothered to look for any other causes.

~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/weight-loss/how-does-life-fat-thee-let-me-count-the-ways/»

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Westbound commute

Slow going this morning, but at least the traffic is light — or should I say “white.”

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Orson Welle’s last film: The Other Side of the Wind

For more than four decades, Hollywood insiders, financiers and dreamers have been obsessed by the quest to recover “The Other Side of the Wind,” the unfinished last film of Orson Welles. Cinema buffs consider it the most famous movie never released, an epic work by one of the great filmmakers.

Doreen Carvajal from, Orson Welles’s Last Film May Finally Be Released

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The tenth amendment

A central part of the American Right’s false Founding Narrative is that the Tenth Amendment trumps the Constitution’s creation of a powerful central government that possesses a mandate to do what’s necessary to provide for the country’s “general Welfare.” In Right-Wing World, the Tenth Amendment gives nearly all powers to the states.

~ Robert Parry from, The Right’s Tenth Amendment Myth

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Is anarchy the answer?

Might not be the “anarchy” you think of at first: Ross criticizes this model from both sides: First, the options offered to the people are too limited and too easily manipulated by those with money and power. My favorite expression of this situation comes from the Cake song “Comfort Eagle“

Some people drink Pepsi, some people drink Coke.
The wacky morning DJ says democracy’s a joke.

~ Doug Muder from, When Centralized Institutions Fail, Is Anarchy an Answer?

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Entertaining

An educated man can…
entertain himself;
entertain a friend;
entertain a new idea.

~ Brett McKay

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1979 Cruising Permit

In 1979, my mom and dad, and their friends the Hollisters, started a long-time tradition of chartering bare-boat sailboats in the Caribbean.

As I’ve been working my way through things I kept from the house, I recently got to scanning this cruising permit which my father had always kept framed on the wall near his work bench.

To all whom these presents may come
greetings
know all men that by
the powers vested in me by the Government
of the Virgin Islands
Bruce Constantine
Master of the Vessel Kona Kai
with his gallant crew of 4
is entitled peacefully to cruise and enjoy
the waters, beaches and reefs
of these blessed islands
from the 18 day of Nov 1979
to the 25 day of Nov 1979

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