Taomeow

Oh, I see. One of my ghostbuster talismans must have censored it out. Sorry about that. They sometimes go above and beyond.

Ah, sorry it's happening to you too! -- but what a relief to know I wasn't a focused target of some technogoblins!

Brian, that must have been one of those synchronicity-driven typos, since both Huangdi and Zhuangzi were on my mind because of the butterflies. You just combined them.

I don't understand.

Indeed, right-clicking did it. Thank you, Brian. Had to look up Huangzi although I guessed you meant Zhuangzi, who indeed seemed to be OK with my humble opinion of his zhi -- a new butterfly showed up today for our regular Friday taiji practice. I think I mentioned the Yellow Emperor, whom we sometimes also call General because he seems to dispatch marching orders, who always shows up for the Friday practice, and by "always" I mean, two years in a row. But this time he was accompanied by a white butterfly that almost landed on the tip of my sword! So I thought of ZZ, of course. I'll be delighted if he makes a habit of it too. Huangzi also existed, per my search, and was a musician.

Karl, I really don't know what to say except, to straighten out some versions of history floating out there, I wouldn't even know where to start. With the Roman empire?.. Babylon?.. dinosaurs?... trilobites?.. I think I'm going to throw in the towel once and for all. History, geography, politics -- anything inhabited by humans -- is a hopeless subject for discussions. Totally disheartening. I think I'll limit myself to posting pictures of cute cats and descriptions of inanimate objects.

As in, wouldn't have signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1940? Or wouldn't have lost the Baltic republics to Germany in 1941, when Hitler changed his mind about not going to war against Russia and, first things first, annexed the Baltics and made them part of the Third Reich weeks into it? Or maybe that Russia, 20 million casualties later, shouldn't have retaken the territory after kicking the Germans out in the course of the Baltic Offensive in 1944? Or what? You're trying to say that it's Russia's bad? Perhaps -- but in this case, Russia was first maneuvering politically in order to avoid a war with Germany for which it wasn't ready, willing, or able at the time, then got outmaneuvered and was attacked anyway, then won the war -- forgetting to do it in white gloves, indeed. If it didn't, the Baltics would have remained under the German nazi rule. You reckon it would have been nicer?..

Turning us around, the movement of the great wheel depends on the hub

Zeros, some of my taoist sources assert that word used to BE energy. That's when spells and incantations healed. They don't anymore. Words separated from actions, words not meaning the same thing as actions they refer to are occasionally just powerless and useless but more often than not evil -- because even though they don't have the energy of acts anymore, they can misdirect and redirect acts, cover them up, falsify perceptions of what really happened. Acts that don't mean what the words "about them" say are evil. And words that don't mean what the acts they are about do are evil. We are drowning in an ocean of evil words and evil acts. One of the first reasons I fell in love with taiji was that my teacher only used words to mean exactly what the actions meant. "Turn the chest. Drop the hip. Step diagonally. Keep your back straight. Rotate the elbow downward." And so on. Turned out I was starved for this way of using words -- your body using them, not your mouth. I sometimes try to envision the world where words would mean the actions they describe. When a politician says "peace," the army goes home. When the prime minister says "prosperity," no one is poor. When the constitution says "freedom," no one is trapped by this or that version of slavery, whether old-fashioned or new and improved. (And the 27 million actual old-fashioned slaves in actual old-fashioned slavery today all go free.) When the doctor says... drats, they are very careful to never say anything that can translate into the disappearance of the illness... but the word would be "cure," not "treat," and would act as what it says (otherwise what's his business doctoring? A shaman who would "treat" an illness without "curing" it used to lose his or her job after three strikes.) When mom says "I love you," the child would be in her arms, looked straight in the eye with shining, joyous, dancing eyes, not on the phone with her. And so on.

OK, you can make a phone call to Africa. Never missed that particular freedom, but it's nice if you have someone to call there. I don't, alas. What I do need is something simpler. Freedom of speech? -- watch me go to jail if I say I can cure cancer, and especially if I can prove it, without being on the pharma's payroll. Yes I can. No I didn't say it. It's against the law. If god forbid I prove it and endanger the profits of those who can't but have the right -- the right granted by the state to the corporation that employs governments for its bodyguards, and taken away from those who can -- what happens next?.. For-profit private prison happens. Do you have the freedom not to go there if you break, not a constitutional law but an ordinance promulgated by an agency that is an arm of a corporate power (e.g. the FDA?) No you don't. You can call Africa though. It can even be your one phone call upon being arrested. It's your right. But do you have the freedom to not be raped in that prison? No you don't. Shit happens. No one is going to stop it. You can still fly to Costa Rica to take a nice vacation from the bothersome and tiring abuse once they let you out. Freedom and progress never fail. And if you happen to meet a nice girl in Costa Rica and marry her, do you have the freedom to have a psychosis-inducing-medication free child if he or she is not sitting slack-jawed in front of the TV but wants to run on green grass and climb trees and maybe do some mischief, the way they still do it in some places in Costa Rica? No, you don't. You have to Ritalin the little bastard. Or else lose your parental rights maybe? Do you have the freedom to parent your child if you are told by authorities to Ritalin him/her and you refuse?.. Try them. But you can still call Africa. And do you have the freedom to not get shot by a trigger-happy cop? No, you don't. If you are one of those people who get shot daily by trigger-happy cops, you lose even your freedom to vacation in Costa Rica -- you die. And do you have the freedom to access the statistics -- how many Americans are shot daily by trigger-happy cops? No, you don't. Classified. How about freedom from prying governmental eyes, freedom to have some privacy in your life? Maybe you don't want them to maintain a database where all emails and posts you've ever written are stored for future reference, and all your phone calls and texts too, just to make sure you're not a terrorist, to be sure? Well, ask for it nicely. But better yet, call Africa. OK, I seem to be having too much fun with this. I should stop. I haven't scratched the surface yet though, mind you... How about the freedom to breathe clean air, eat real rather than poisonous, mutagenic, teratogenic, carcinogenic stand-off for food, drink water into which no one dumps toxic chemicals?.. No? don't need that? need to call Africa instead? All right. You are a free man. Congratulations.

Flaming is poor substitute for brain activity. You post was not boring -- it was mind-blowing. The pictures I posted illustrated your astute points regarding progress and freedom we enjoy at an unprecedented rate.

Thank you, GtW. I will ask the I Ching.

http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/2015/06/26/kids-hypnotized-by-television/

True, there's few noble causes left and fewer still are impossible to distort and thwart even if they start out as noble. But the NWO is an absolute realistic vector of global developments and an absolute, not relative, evil at that (I don't know what current role the illuminati play in it, I do know that they were a major thwarting force at one point in history, e.g. infiltrating 90% of masonic lodges which originally started out with a noble cause!) -- and in Russia specifically the situation is very peculiar -- the noble ones don't get it, the ignoble ones who don't buy it are selling something that is not palatable at all as an alternative. The distinctions blur when a fascist opposes a nazi who opposes a racist who opposes a religious fundamentalist who opposes a NWO pawn. The latter being the worst, but his opponents are so far removed from noble that he is often chosen as their champion by people who should know better but don't. And very little of this mess is local in nature. Russia's wealthiest have 500 billion dollars' worth of investments in Western corporations, and it's anyone's guess where their loyalties lie. Hardly with mother Russia. Which is my point all along, has been all along. Countries don't matter anymore. One has to investigate the activities of global corporations and, especially, their origins and historical roots to understand anything at all. The main thing to understand for a private citizen is how to protect himself/herself and the loved ones. You say it's the only thing that matters. But places get set on fire and it becomes the hardest thing in the world for people there. Ordinary people not looking to support or oppose causes. Causes find them, that's the thing...

double

Thank you. OK, if you want to look for the real answers, you may want to start digging somewhat deep -- way deep... the underwater part of this iceberg is 180 years old by a very conservative estimate -- so it's hard for me to tell where exactly one needs to start waving one's hands before one's mind's eye to dispel the fog. Maybe start with a few key figures in the making of the new capitalist Russia and work it out backward?.. Here's some of them (by far not the only ones, just the ones that came in handy via a bookmark I happened to have saved): (The honorable Arthur Hartman, in case the face is not familiar, was the US ambassador to the USSR under Reagan. The Russians are a couple of movers and shakers who neither moved nor shook anything of their own accord.)

Thank you, GtW. What heat gun -- just something from a hardware store, or is there a special one? The process you describe is very similar to roasting raw sunflower seeds, something I've done many times, but I've done this in a pan with a heat diffuser under it, stirring constantly. Do you know of a reason this can't be done with coffee?

Well, if you ever do, make sure you don't lose your coffee virginity to any which smooth operator that comes along. Choose the source of your first sip the way you would choose your first kiss. Got to be fresh as morning dew; hot, dark and sweet as a night of passion; and strong enough to walk on its own.

"Russia Becomes You," by Jeffrey Wilgus. it is not well-written, and it is not really recommended -- except for a glimpse of a perspective gained by an American businessman who actually did live in Russia in the 90s. (And chose to stay there permanently, "gone Injun.") I only mentioned it because I remembered that a book written by one of them might at least indicate that they did exist, those consultants, after reading a few entries in this-here thread mocking the idea with utmost sarcasm. I respectfully disagree with absolutely everything you had to say, with the would-be exception of the questions you asked -- "Now the question which must be asked therefore is what were these consultants doing in a sovereign country in the first place? Who was it that brought them over and for what purpose?" -- which would have been an excellent starting place for a real inquiry if you didn't hasten to immediately dismiss them and fire off your ready answers. However, I've no time or incentives to argue. Oh, and I didn't say "global," I said "globalist." "Global" and "globalist" don't mean the same thing, not even close. "Global" refers to geography, history, economics, culture, national identities and interests, etc.; "globalist" -- to government-corporate chimeras that have nothing to do with geography, history, economics, culture, national identities and interests. If you have missed the global foray into globalist developments, you've missed pretty much everything worth analyzing. The rest is arguing about whether to trade a sheep for an ax (as in Das Kapital's favorite example) is fair or two sheep for an ax is, or two axes for a sheep, and arriving at the conclusion that the trade that looks fair to you is good natural capitalism, and that that's what we've been doing all along, to everybody's delight. Whereas what's really going on is, the same owner owns the sheep and the ax, and can (and does) educate the sheep any which way he likes, and ax it if it bleats out of tune. Over and out, the subject is too vast and all I really wanted to say is, nothing at all.

It must be great if you can do it yourself! No, I don't roast my own -- I'm steampunk enough as it is, on a mission to cut down on my prehistoric ways (which I actually prefer for many purposes...) I know and use, on occasion, a variety of cavewoman technologies... so, I used to grind my coffee in a hand grinder, hang my own wild-picked herbs to dry in bundles in the shade, make cheese from scratch and fruit preserves and smoked fish and what not -- but I have to cut a few corners if I want more time left for my other pursuits. Which I do. So, no, I don't roast my own. Must be quite something if the original product is of high quality. Do you need special equipment for this?

It's more like comparing "cognac" to "wine" -- not about the raw material -- in both cases grapes -- but about the way they are processed. Yes, it's true that they call both a varietal and a process "Harar," to make things a bit more confusing, but I'm referring to the outcome -- a harari coffee is not an arabica coffee anymore than cognac is a strong grape wine. The process makes sure you wind up with two different outcomes. So, I was talking the taste. I don't know the biology of hundreds of varieties of coffee and their history and so on as well as I know the taste. The taste of Chelelektu is harari with overtones of mocha. Word.

Oh yeah, and the globalists stayed totally out of it. Nothing to look at here, folks, move on. Everything just happens, nothing about capitalism needs to be planned, it's the most natural state of the human animal, it comes ziran. And the 10,000 "consultants" from the US in Moscow alone in the early 90s (I've read a book by one of them, incidentally) were free entrepreneurs all of them. What else could they possibly be?.. This is a funny world. 99% of folks are willing to believe that the remaining 1% have more money than they do. But ask them to believe that 1% also have more information and you can take your pick between "idiot" and "conspiracy theorist" if you make a peep to that effect. So, every time I delete, on second thought, whatever I feel like saying, it's only because I shouldn't have spoken to impenetrable walls to begin with. Must respect the architect of these constructs. Whoever the motherfucker is.

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Sounds interesting. My latest thing is Chelelectu from Yirgacheffe, an Ethiopian heirloom coffee. Also hard to find, and especially hard to find a good one -- I had two hits, two misses. The misses were not really "bad" but not as fresh as the hits. The hits were oily as sin and retained something I hadn't seen since the times/places long before mail orders, when someone would bring back coffee from a trip to Moscow (whoever went for whatever reason, I always asked for it) bought at the most famous coffee store in Russia's history. To wit, a bright orange silverskin, a membrane in the middle of the bean. I didn't research but based on the taste it's a mocha harari, and people used to arabicas may find it a bit too complex with strong fruity-acidic-chocolate notes. In my distant past spent among aficionados and even snobs of coffee, "70% arabica 30% harari" was repeated like a sacred mantra, and robustas from India were met with disdain, but I'm a connoisseur, not a snob, so I've broken some of the rules many times... although some are still sacred.

Hi Mantis, I've never tried cold brewed coffee. And, yes, far as I know, some of its phytochemicals need heat to be released, specifically kahweol and cafestol. These nutrients activate glutathione, which is the primary antioxidant in the cell. In laboratory studies, kahweol has shown anti-inflammatory properties, and also stopped neovascularization (a process whereby many malignant tumors form their "private" blood supply network of new blood vessels and divert blood and nutrition from the body to the cancer.) Both kahweol and cafestol have displayed anticancer properties. If you haven't seen it, I posted stuff about coffee recently in another section -- WeiWuWei -- which is where I'm going to enter any and all new threads if I initiate them. The only ones in other sections where I'm going to post are either my old ones should they get revisited, or the ones I haven't started. Just FYI. The thread is titled "What everyone should know about coffee."