Taomeow

I remember when I first heard this song, I had this feeling it was somehow a dark prophecy, one of those that come in a vision you can only understand viscerally... until it comes true. Gave me such goosebumps.

I just finished watching Katla, an Icelandic series on Netflix, which IMO is conceptually inspired by Solaris (or else is a rip-off, but in a different setting.) Of course it falls way short... but maybe someone will be interested -- it's in English.

Wishing you a speedy complete recovery. Hopefully being young and healthy will offer you all the healing power you need. But if (god forbid) it gets worrisome and doctors don't catch mice, PM me. I won't argue the politics of it -- I'll share treatment protocols from doctors who actually treat it (whose opinions you might hate but whose patients recover uneventfully.) Good luck!

I could windsurf, but never tried surfing without a sail. And with a sail, I wasn't that much of an expert either -- when the wind was too strong, blowing in the opposite direction of where I was going, I usually ended up on the opposite shore of a 3-mile-wide lake and then it took me forever to figure out a way to get back. The first time it happened, my vacation mates eventually realized I was stranded there or I wouldn't have been late for dinner, and got in a canoe to "rescue" me -- I had to switch to the canoe, changing places with a more experienced windsurfer who was able to navigate it back against that stubborn wind. As for the ice skates, you are right about knives on your feet -- "knives" is actually what the style of the second pair in my picture is called in my native tongue. You do feel badass thus equipped, but then, people who haven't mastered the regular ice skates typically don't attempt the "knives," so they tend to know what they're doing.

What hope is there for us? Only one thing: the fact that it is very difficult to imitate Love. They try -- every day -- but their faces are all contorted from the contrived effort and their eyes radiate death -- haven't you noticed?.. Hatred, by contrast, comes easy to them and always looks genuine because it is who they genuinely are. Effortlessly. Our only hope is a sudden awakening of the hypnotized to the fact they've been hypnotized by the eyes of Death imitating Love. By the tongue of Hate speaking of Love. By the message of Despair faking Hope. Our only hope is...

Some old tech you can't improve on much. I used to have these -- inherited from my mom and then these, exactly like my dad's

Maybe when my kids were little... When they were teenagers, I was the only parent accepted into the 'inner circle' -- possibly because I read a book by two Yale researchers titled "Marijuana: The Forbidden Medicine" in the course of trying to research it for myself and figure out how horrible it really is and how much shit I should give the kids if I find out they tried it. I found out a lot of stuff that ran counter to the narrative of the day, and told them everything I learned. So then they conspired to make me try it for myself (I was practically a pot virgin), and pretty much any and all pot I ever smoked since then was in the company of my son's friends and on their insistence. I made them swear they won't tell their parents.

Soapwort -- I used it only as a kid, it was part of my childhood herbal education. The procedure was simple -- you just grabbed some fresh flowers off the plant (I remember it flowering through the summer) and rubbed them between your palms and then all over your hands -- rinse off with water -- voila, clean hands. (Drats, I knew everything about everything that grew in my immediate environment and in the forests as a 5-year-old... they don't educate kids like that anymore, to my knowledge. Camomile hair rinse for golden highlights in your hair. Fresh plantain leaf, slightly bruised, applied to scraped knees and elbows = antiseptic, antibiotic, speeds up healing... and no need to interrupt the game to run home for medical assistance. All the dangers of the deadly nightshade -- you weren't supposed not only to touch it but to even look at it from a close distance -- just in case it decides to jump you. While you also knew that black nightshade is entirely edible and fun to eat. Stuff like that.) Depends on the purpose. Like I said, I'm still partial to that "Household Soap" for lots of things... but one might want to know how to read Russian so as not to buy the wrong kind (there's some really useless stuff under that name floating around these days, I've been burned a couple of times -- but I know what I'm looking for, so it's easier for me to sort it out.) I also used to buy African black soap, but the quality was inconsistent -- a good batch was great and left you feeling "squeaky clean" -- definitely "squeaky," it left no sticky feel like so many soaps do -- without irritating. All natural and with some cool herbs in it. But then a bad batch would leave a black residue all over my bathtub (I'm not a shower person, I take baths -- and use soap with that about once a week, the rest of the time, just water and a loofah.) Some of the cleaning stuff I make myself (e.g. a mix of baking soda, Borax, and "clean" dishwashing liquid from a HFS yield a paste intended for tough jobs -- very greasy pans, burned stuff on the bottom, oven and the like.) For just routine cleaning, baking soda by itself is prominent in my life (dip a damp dish rag in it and rub off all that incriminating evidence of my being partial to very white coffee cups and very strong coffee.) I'm not obsessive about any of that though... sometimes it's just "whatever," and sometimes I attempt to be good -- to myself, the environment, etc.. It depends.

That used to be a rather popular method in many parts, and the reason it changed is, as always, commercial/government interventions. E.g., in 1688 King Louis XIV of France issued a decree forbidding the use of animal fats for making soap -- only olive oil was to be used. Violators of this law were threatened with the closure of their business and expulsion from Provence, the soap capital of the time. However, that famous soap, known as Marseille soap, was unaffected by that law in Russia, was renamed "Household Soap" at some point, stripped of fancy fragrances and simplified toward being literally dirt cheap and easily affordable even to the poorest. It enjoyed hundreds of years of popularity as a universal cleaning substance and survives to this day. I still buy it on ebay or Amazon or from local Russian pharmacies because it is chemicals-free (if you read the labels carefully - - a few new "improved" or rather fudged-up varieties appeared of late under the same name but with changed contents) and does a superb job on everything you need to clean, replacing hundreds of harsh chemical formulas. E.g. it's a better stain remover and bleach than Clorox in my experience, yet it's gentle enough to use as hands and body soap on dry skin, as disinfectant for scrapes and wounds, as a non-irritating wash for problem skin etc.. The smell is not that great though, but fortunately isn't made to last, so once you rinse it off with water, it disappears. It contains up to 76% fatty acids derived from animal fat.

My new kitten, Monkey. She's 9 weeks old and well-behaved her behavior is commensurate with her age. The people in whose home she was born gave her to me on the eve of permanently leaving California for Florida. I was thinking of calling the kitty Califlo -- to associate her with these two states, and her being a three-color calico seemed to also imply a pun somewhere there. Or maybe Cauliflower. But since two languages are spoken in my environment, I had to zero in on a name that rolls off the tongue with equal ease in both and sounds similar despite differences in pronunciation. The Russian version of her name is Man'ka, a very informal/vernacular diminutive of Maria.

Toxoplasmosis...

A group of Montana men advertising for wives, 1901. The second guy on the left looks based.

@liminal_luke Thank you! How are we going to withstand the storms now?..

Some governments respect their cats more than others I guess. Turkey was the first country to install street vending machines for cats and dogs. Some others have followed suit. and little houses for stray cats in the streets

Freeze, motherstickers! It's a fuck-up!

Laozi Chapter 20 in 2020 Your thinking, my dear, is noble and clear, alert are your eyes, overfloweth your cup. While I am befuddled, I'm horribly muddled -- for this, I am subject to straightening up. Your mind is made up, sir, you've read your newspaper and watched your TV so you know what is true. You'd get indigestion from all of those questions I ask of the things that are clear to you.

Many thanks to all the mods for their time and effort.

What should we do with category X? * All businesses must provide a list of their employees who are in category X. * Category X employees must be dismissed. * But since dismissal is unconstitutional, they are simply suspended from work with no salary. * For X, it is forbidden to visit restaurants and public catering. * X is prohibited from playing sports and relaxing in parks, squares, etc. * Category X is prohibited from using public transportation. * Category X is prohibited from visiting theaters, cinema and concerts. * Category X is prohibited from working in government agencies, in hospitals, educational organizations (schools and universities), in the tourist business, in the hotel business, as well as in all areas related to public services." These are orders of the Nazi authorities regarding the Jews of Holland during the occupation of 1940-1945 (B.A. Kurkin "Neutrals of Europe and France in the Second World War", p. 130-132)

Wish I could elope to Eden with Karl Gustaf, king of Sweden.

I don't think it's photoshopped. Given a chance to interact, cows and cats often do, in all kinds of ways...

No! I don't want any milk! Leave me alone!

To take a step away from a scholarly discussion and into the realm of imagination: Sir Philip Pullman, author of rather intelligent and fun bestsellers of which His Dark Materials trilogy is perhaps the best-known one, has obviously spent a lot of time pondering that question too. In his books, the I Ching morphed into "the golden compass" which "tells the truth" -- and the substance permeating the universe, golden Dust, was discovered as the carrier of that ultimate knowledge and truth regarding everything and anything. The all-knowing fabric of existence itself. The golden compass was a device created toward registering that substance and interacting with it in a way that allowed one to ask a question about anything and get the answer which then needed to be correctly interpreted and understood -- the process requiring talent, skill and/or extensive scholarship and training.

Generally, the way it's done in my tradition is from the simplest to the most arcane, with constant returns to/revisiting the simplest in between mastering any next level of the arcane. If you liken the arcane ones to piloting your spirit into otherworldly dimensions, the simplest are like going back to the recharging station before your next journey. This is a rough sketch of course, in reality the journey and the no-journey may converge into something that is both and neither... indeed, hard to put into words. But they are also sort of opposites: you do no-focus, no-concentration on anything, no-guiding anything, surrender and perceive (but also do the not-perceive while at it), dissolve into nonbeing, in absolute stillness. And then the other one -- absolute focus, peak concentration, guiding everything consciously, make it surrender to your will, perceive everything, in absolute motion-within-stillness. The first one feels like it doesn't matter what it feels like. The second one feels like all that matters is what it feels like. Now I'm sure I've confused everyone.

Yes. Pretty amazing. Normally, a land animal will drag the water animal it's interested in eating out of the water first.