Author Archives: MeridaGOround

THERE IS NO “LESSER EVIL”.

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America has been hijacked by Big Money.  Until we wake up to this fact, we are merely watching a puppet show inside Plato’s cave, and refusing to come out into the light.  Yes, do vote for Joe Biden, who gave us Clarence Thomas and denounced busing in Delaware to prevent school integration.  Yes, forget that Joe is a puppet, and Kamala is an enabler of the police state — if you really think it will make a difference to elect them.  It can’t be worse than what we’ve got.  But wake up to the fact that it is not real community, not real change,

Photographer unknown. Internet. Fair use.

 

Nothing will change until Little Money, from many small donors evicts the owners of the casino’s puppet show (Congress) where “money is speech” and donations somehow are not bribes.  We need to demand an end to gerrymandering — in the street, if necessary — by which politicians of both stripes game us, and own our electoral system.  We need to defeat the Big-Lie propaganda spewed by Fox, CNN, NYT, Facebook – with our own truth-telling.   Today, All politics is digital, and you are the agent of change.  Be the change you wish to see!  Pull back the curtain, and yank down the wizard’s pants! Let go of tribalism, and join genuine community.  

EXCERPT, below, from CaitlinJohnstone dot com – see especially the embedded link :

If you are an American who is dissatisfied with the presidential choices you are being offered in election after election, consider focusing your energy on the status quo itself. Consider taking the energy you might have put into talking about Donald Trump and Joe Biden and putting it into waking up your countrymen to the fact that the political class is there to rob them and the media class is there to deceive them on behalf of their oligarchic owners.

What prevents real change from coming to the most powerful nation in the world is not the fact that the “lesser evil” loses elections, it’s the fact that everyone’s being manipulated into buying into a fake performance that is wholly owned and operated by a single oligarchic force which benefits directly from oppression, exploitation and mass murder. It’s that there is no “lesser evil”.  

> > THIRD PARTY CONVENTION < < SUNDAY

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The Missing Links, Good cop/bad cop, MentalFloss dot com (fair use) 

If you’re tired of being good cop /bad cop’d you might want to tune in to  The Movement for a People’s Party, Sunday, August 30 for the start of something fresh — a viable third party which can’t be bought — (registration required to view the event) – with great speakers lined-up. Both parties, and their major donors know that keeping the game narrow means they always win.  A third party would make this more expensive and less likely, especially if they can’t buy dominance of the new party.  The current two-party puppet show has become boorish.  Small donors can change this.

TUNE IN !   ¿ Are you weary of money as $peech, yet?  (In Citizens United The Supremes decided that “he who donates the most dollars” wins; and we the little people lose.)  Our two-party system got the memo, er, they sent the memo on behalf of their corporate overlords which bought and paid to own this rigged and tedious game.

That old notion, when the people lead, the leaders will follow, still has currency — in many small donations.  We the People need to buy back our governance.  Got appetite?  We already have a good foundation in our Constitution, but we’ve allowed it to become stale and stinky by failing to challenge the nonsense of “originalism” powerfully debunked here by Dean of Stanford Law School :

Edwin Chemerinsky’s WE THE PEOPLE.  

TAKE BACK THE NIGHT !  

DEFEAT BULLIES IN RED & BLUE!

VOTING FROM OVERSEAS

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Official Ballot, 1926, NYPL digital collection

My wife and I became “federal voters” in the spring, and were able to vote in both our state’s primary election, and to cast primary ballots for candidates for federal office (which may vary depending on your state) — as we had to declare our intention eventually to return to our state, in order to participate in state elections. (Federal voters also get to vote in the General Election.)  

We accomplished these changes by contacting our former county board of elections, submitting signed encrypted documents electronically (rules may vary).  We were then able to cast our primary ballots by shipping them to a friend in Florida by FedX, who took them to a local post office where they were hand-cancelled (to verify the date of their entry into the mail stream).  Don’t rely on foreign mail to deliver any of these documents in either direction, as they likely will not arrive on time.  

If you want to attempt this, I’ve linked some details, gleaned thru or from League of Women Voters (by referral, to US Vote Foundation) and the federal government to point you in the right direction, but you might best contact your former board of elections to get an application by email.  (We wanted to avoid partisan recruiting by party operatives, as my sense is that they sometimes engage in pesky fund-raising schemes.)  Be alert!  Don’t give your personal details away online, without encryption. Know the destination, with certainty.  More on federal voting from Federal Voting Assistance Program.

NOTE:  NEVER send ballots to a board of election by private carrier, such as UPS, or FedX.  They will be invalidated.  Ballots must be carried by US MAIL, and need a valid, readable postmark — which can only be assured if someone submits them for hand cancellation.  Over 550,000 ballots were invalidated for various reasons in the last federal election cycle.  Don’t let your electoral voice be snuffed by casual handling!

INDOOR MOSQUITO CONTROL

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Close the S-trap, please!

Some of us get bitten by mosquitos, more indoors than outdoors.  Unless you’re a plumber, you may not be aware that there is a tiny swamp of standing water in the drains of your sink basins and shower stalls. (This S-trap, desaguadero en estilo-S; estilo ese) is designed to retain water as a plug while allowing spillage, locking septic gases below ground, yet still enabling drainage.)  This liquid plug is an ideal hatchery, and needs to be screened or blocked to prevent those hatchlings from being deposited, and then biting and breeding indoors.   But it’s easy, if you disrupt access to where they’re laying their eggs.  

Go to a kitchen store, or maybe a plumbing supply, and get a mesh strainer, as shown above.  Or simply cover the drains when not actually draining — with those handy lids that cap off your water garrafa arriving from e-pura or Cristal.  For the floor drain in the shower, lids from those clear plastic containers of nuts sold at Costco are of a perfect size. (I’ve entered many articles on mosquito control, which can be searched in the white field at the upper right.)

PLEASE HELP ME RESTORE TWO MISSING BLOGPOSTS :

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“LADY LIBERTY”   A.I.-generated portrait, by Bas Uterwijk (fair use)

Dear Reader,

Digits are ephemeral.  I’ve lost two recent blogposts which I posted last week, before migrating my site to a new host,.  The photos are easy to repost, but the writing seems to be gone.  As exceedingly unlikely as it might be, maybe somebody out there filed the text of either of these posts?  One was titled FILM REVIEW:  A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood; (posted July 27) and the other was titled  ¿¿ What is Liberty ??  (posted July 31).  If you happen to have either of them, I would be most grateful to hear from you in the comment section, or at my personal email, if you have it.  (If you don’t wish to see your name in print, simply say so, as I can keep your response private.)  Note to anyone who might need to migrate a WordPress site:  Recent drafts are fugitive, and will be abandoned during transit!

If you’ve passed up this film, thinking it’s sappy, smarmy, kids-stuff, you’ve missed a gem about a true encounter between a hardboiled journalist and a PBS children’s entertainer which is subtly powerful.  An acquaintance who worked with Fred Rogers at the TV studio encouraged me also to read the cover article from Esquire magazine which hatched the film.  I did, and it’s quite good.

(Still hoping to find the original blogposts)

“MODERATION IN ALL THINGS” // ADDICTION

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Photo by Dylan de Jonge (fair use)

Balance is delicate — a Goldilocks concept :  just right.  Early Greek philosophers articulated it well :  moderation in all things.  German designers of the Bauhaus school borrowed the concept, observing that less is more.  Yet so many humans, especially in youth, tend to subscribe to a risky  position by arguing that, if some is fun or good,  more is better.  

We can become addicted to substances, to pleasures, to self.  But we can also become addicted to nonsense, making a god out of purity, abstinence — resulting in holier than thou positions, and judgementalism.  (Yes, I get it, that some people simply have problems maintaining balance, and their only practical resort is abstinence — and I do not judge that position.)  Whatever works to attain balance is wise, even if it may appear to be immoderately severe to other folks.  Jesus said judge not, lest ye be judged.  And that’s a delicate and difficult instruction.

Presently I’m located in a state which has banned all alcohol sales, again. (I’ve written on this topic before.)  Said state also insists that people wear masks — a wise policy, brilliantly enforced by traffic laws.  They even insist that everyone smear alcoholic sanitizer on their hands upon entering a store — a practice which I find bizarre.  Hey, the world is dirty, and as soon as I touch anything, so am I.  There is even some evidence that hand sanitizer is unhealthy, if it has been made with methanol, which is toxic, and can be absorbed thru the skin.  ¿ Is such a state poisoning citizens?

But the inconsistency about alcohol is odd.  On one hand (yeah, on both) the state advocates using alcohol to prevent cv-19 infection, and on the other it bans alcohol consumption where it could be considered medicinal to the throat — the main entry portal of the plague.  Drinking a little alcohol might actually be beneficial, as long as it is done moderately.  

Of course, no state can legislate moderation.  Yet they continue to try.  And people continue to drink hand sanitizer when they can’t buy booze, and then die.  Together we can get thru this pandemic if we think carefully.

 

UPDATED — ¿¿ MY HERITAGE ??

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The justification for displaying treasonous symbols based upon family history, “heritage” – is indefensible.  For example, in my own case I have some German-American ancestry, and some southern ancestry.  One of my paternal ancestors was born in southern Germany, arriving in the USA at age three.  He was seriously wounded in our civil war, fighting to defend the union of states, and our national Constitution, as a foot soldier. 

 My Dad’s elder brother was a paratrooper in the US Army during WW2 who served in Europe, fighting against the German reich.  (On my maternal, Irish, southern side, a history of any Confederate service is unknown to me.)  I simply cannot imagine anyone in our family justifying the display of the nazi swastika for “pride of our German heritage”!  

Here’s a well-argued essay suggesting that neither symbol above should be displayed by loyal Americans.  In the case of the stars and bars of the confederacy, that flag represents the ownership and abuse of other human beings.  (Thomas Jefferson reportedly claimed the children he fathered with his slave, Sally Hemings, as “property”.)   It is shameful to celebrate and defend such a heritage by flying that rebel banner.  

I ask, from the flip side of the Golden Rule :  If you were “owned” rather than “owner” would you be displaying this symbol?  The words of George Santayana come to mind :  Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.  Remembering is one thing; prideful celebration and display is something altogether different.  Humility requires, nay, demands that we put away such artifacts.

Independence Day is a day humbly to celebrate unity, equality, liberty.  Like Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which immediately became law but did not instantly become practice, these words ring true :  Love hath one race, one realm, one power.  ~MB Eddy.   The human race knows this in its heart, and will come to see that it is practiced naturally.  We have an internal and eternal sense of justice, and an innate ability to recognize the ideal.  This is our destiny.  

Philosopher John Rawls (in my retelling) invites us to a game of musical chairs at a table where the constitution of the land is being drafted. While we deliberate over what is just for various classes of people, we don’t know what chair we will occupy — a wheelchair? – a throne? – a beggar’s pallet on a sidewalk? – that of a bank CEO? — yes, true justice must truly be blind.  Nobody knows where one will sit tomorrow, which is true today.  Disregard our future seating at your own peril.

Excerpted from a powerful essay by Robin Wright at The New Yorker :  The statue [of Liberty] was the brainchild of Edouard de Laboulaye, a prominent French expert on the U.S. Constitution who also headed the French Anti-Slavery Society. After the Civil War, in 1865, he wanted to commemorate the end of slavery in the U.S., enshrined in the new Thirteenth Amendment, which, in theory, reaffirmed the ideals of freedom—this time for all people—first embodied in the Declaration of Independence.

++ UPDATED : : MURAL ART : : MÉRIDA : : YUCATÁN : : MÉXICO : : BUFFALO : :

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La casa de Yul, c.62, a bit north of Av. Cùpules, Merida.

++ UPDATE :  There are two new images below, shared by another friend. I’m open to receiving photos of Mexican mural art, with details of location, (and author, if possible).   Perhaps this space, or a new entry, could become a point of documenting these works.  Send me a comment to discuss arranging receipt of images. ++

Friend Pat shared an article with me this morning (++last week) which has inspired me to dig thru my photos of street art seen around town.  That sharing linked me to a digital magazine I was unaware of,  featuring local cultural aspects, Memorias de Nómada (my rough translation:  recollections from wandering).  While I daily read the Mexican press online at sites such as LaJornadaMaya.mx , DiarioDeYucatan, and HeraldoDeMexico.com.mx ,  I had not known of this magazine.  Pleased ta meet’cha!   The story linked above, telling of an artist named Yul who lives at the depicted building on c.62 between Estadio Alvarado and Avenida Cúpules, is all in Spanish, which introduced me to some fun new words; if you don’t read the idiom, you might enjoy browsing the photos and events at their Home /Inicio.

 

 Next up we have a building being painted in a style reminiscent of Dutch artist Piet Mondrian.  If you look closely at the photo you can see the artist, Samual Barrera, working on a section of yellow, wearing a blue shirt.  His ladder is around the corner.  The owner sold the building, and the side with circles in black, gray, red and white, near his ladder, has been covered over.

Two blocks north of Av.Colon, near c.6 and c.33-d, in Garcia Gineres, near Slow Food Market

 There is a long tradition of mural painting in Mexico, preceding the golden age of Mexican muralists, such as Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. Below we see a replica of a mural done by the ancient Maya, at a home in Izamal.

Replica of a Mayan mural in Izamal.

 

A dynamic work, visible on the east side of c60 x c21 y c19, “Plan de Ayala” enroute to Costco

 

Near the old train depot in Mejorada neighborhood of centro Merida.  Photo by S.B.

 

Corn goddess gives birth to maize, inside old train station, c55 y c48, Mejorada, Merida. Photo: SB

 

Many of the items below are near Estadio Salvador Alvarado, on C.60 or 62.

Mural across from estadio Alvarado, on c.60

 

Mural across from Yul’s house. on c.62, near estadio Alvarado.

 

 

 

Fachada de jardín, c.64 x41y39, near central police station and Plaza de Toros, the bull ring.

 

c.64 near c.41, near central police station and bull ring.

 

The one below is a favorite.  It is too long to share completely, as the detail would be so tiny.  I’ve titled it “Launching Mayan women”.    They’re wearing huipiles, the classic embroidered house dress.  The mural is near a favorite coffee shop, Pan & Kaffe (c.43, x60 y 58).

“Launching Mayan women” (my title) on c.43, x64y62.

 

Mural painted by Mario Quiñones, on c.55 near c.74, centro.

 

Home of muralist Mario Quiñones, in centro, whose wife is a good seamstress.

 

Urban art from Buffalo NY (sharing the universal appeal of urban art). An abandoned department store on Broadway at Filmore, dressed in fabric.

 

MASKED ENFORCEMENT

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Photo by Suriyan Buntiam, ShutterStock (fair use)

The State of Yucatán has done a very wise thing by merging the wearing of masks with the operation of motor vehicles.  This act allows for enforcement by traffic cops.  All drivers must wear a mask while operating a vehicle.  Men, especially, are widely known to resist wearing masks.  But how many would risk a traffic infraction for the “liberty” of not wearing one? — the liberty to infect others.   Yucatecos should be proud of this law.  It is one of the wiser policies enacted anywhere.  (eg: The effectiveness of wearing masks is established as reasonable for reducing the spread of cv-19.)