Wrote this for BlogforArizona: https://blogforarizona.net/dirty-money-dirty-tricks-dirty-judges/
How can we get the story out to enough of Arizona to vote these judges out? If everyone really understood, they would be gone...
...if you give someone ideas, and they put in the work to bring them to life, it's like
..."It [providence] has shown the heaven and earth to every child, and filled him with a desire of the whole; a desire raging, infinite; a hunger, as of space to be filled with planets; a cry of famine, as of devils for souls. Then for the satisfaction, - to each man is administered a single drop, a bead of dew of vital power, per day, a copy as large as space, and one drop of the water of life in it. ....
In every house...this chasm is found - between the largest promise of ideal power, and the shabby experience"
--Ralph Waldo Emerson, Selected Writings p376
...Spending a week in SF, first impression is the beautiful buildings, the busy foot traffic, and the grime. It feels like a city where everyone is pushing to the limit all the time, with clean airy offices but streets too busy for planters, despite the friendly climate. And the homeless. SF is kinder to its homeless than many cities, with the result that they are everywhere on the streets.
I kept thinking, I'd like to go around and ask them, how they'd feel about having the opportunity to clean a bit when they liked, for small payments. Like a nonprofit that supplies cleaning materials and goes around donating to those who keep their area clean, and maybe leave a plant or street garden to be cared for too. In Tucson we have public little mini gardens with edible plants, like in front of the main library. The climate in SF should make those much easier to grow.
I love San Francisco, but it also makes me appreciate the breathing room we have in Tucson. Relaxed co-ops and organizations like Bicas, not having to justify so many thousands in rent or property costs, can help people fix bikes for a couple
...Of all the flimsy excuses of why children of the rich and powerful should have privileges from birth, meritocracy is perhaps the most blatantly illogical. Divine right of kings is more rational.
...to write up properly:
very close analogy - pull from GrannyD's speech; and the guy on Trevor Noah this week about data-basd and fact-based agencies having most problem with Trump
cancer cells defect in repair = repressing dissent/truth
the pathway to cancer is similar to the pathway to corruption
also humor / comedy as immunization
attacking the immune system
but also uniquely - because fewer heads can be more coordinated in its attacks on people, very systematic
attacks on the schools
...Had a really interesting conversation with some long time Russian friends of mine. My friend Inna told me that because of all the discussions about it she decided to read Ayn Rand's book; she said it was practically unreadable, and really reminded her of communist propaganda pieces.
The thing that both have in common, also with current propaganda about 'great russia', is ways to make people who feel low or put down feel better about themselves by feeling like their country or system is somehow great and better than others. So its sort of a cheap way of making people feel good about themselves, but manipulating them in the process.
...Just finished "Its kind of a Funny Story", great book, looked up the author and found he committed suicide in 2013, 9 years after he wrote the book about depression and real friends and creativity and his 5 days in a psych ward.
And tried to find his writings, like blogs, and found this - another fan, her words made a lot of sense to me:
"If there is one thing I have learned from Vizzini, it’s that struggles are not written in pencil. You can’t erase the past, and if you try to cross it out, it only looks worse. If you try to rip out the pages of your story that you don’t like, the book won’t make any sense."
https://twloha.com/blog/thank-you-ned-vizzini/
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