(11-06-2024, 12:50 PM)UltraBudgie Wrote: Pretty birdies, family members suffering grief, the loneliness of distance, and right now wondering what it is your avatar is eating!

And now wondering whether my second cup of coffee is ready yet.

I think she is eating candy - it is from the film Blade Runner (one of my favorite films).

I hope you enjoyed your coffee - I have had way too much coffee today. 

By the way, I am glad to hear you also love birds. I love all animals, but there is just something incredibly special about the bird's morning song. 

I think it's the best song to hear in the morning, I often open the window to our garden so I can enjoy one of nature's gifts. ❤️

(11-07-2024, 10:00 AM)LightAngel Wrote: I think she is eating candy - it is from the film Blade Runner (one of my favorite films).

Yep, mine, too. I remember reading some trivia about the movie and apparently, that advertising was about promoting birth control pills.

(11-07-2024, 10:16 AM)Encia22 Wrote: Yep, mine, too. I remember reading some trivia about the movie and apparently, that advertising was about promoting birth control pills.

Advertising birth control? 

I guess you learn something new everyday 

I’m thinking Letitia James is a toxic B

(11-07-2024, 11:44 AM)KTemplar Wrote: I’m thinking Letitia James is a toxic B

Fear does that to a person.

Not fear that there will be any "retaliation" - she's too exposed for anyone to think they could get away with it.
Not fear that her employment and career are over - so many will always love her theoretical downfall as a martyrs' passion play.

But fear of people in general... recognizing and speaking about what she has done, and realizing exactly "why" she did it...

Here for no particular reason is a big ole chunk of Søren Kierkegaard, from Works of love : some Christian reflections in the form of discourses.

https://archive.org/details/worksofloves...r/mode/2up

Quote:To love another in spite of his weaknesses and errors and imperfections is not perfect love. No, to love is to find him lovable in spite of and together with his weaknesses and errors and imperfections. Let us understand each other.

Suppose there were two artists, and the one said, “I have travelled much and seen much in the world, but I have sought in vain to find someone worth painting. I have found no face with such perfection of beauty that I could make up my mind to paint it. In every face I have seen one or another little flaw. Therefore I seek in vain.” Would this indicate that this artist was a great artist? In contrast, the second one said, “Well, I do not pretend to be a very good artist, if one at all; neither have I travelled very much. But remaining in the little circle closest to me, I have not found a face so insignificant or so full of faults that I still could not discern in it a more beautiful side and discover something glorious. Therefore I am happy in the art I practice, though I make no claim to being an artist.” Would this not indicate that precisely this one was the artist, one who by bringing a certain something with him found then and there what the much-travelled artist did not find anywhere in the world, perhaps because he did not bring a certain something with him! Was not the second of the two the real artist?

It is a sad upside-downness, altogether too common, to talk on and on about how the object of love should be before it can be loved. The task is not to find the lovable object, but to find the object before you lovable – whether given or chosen – and to be able to continue finding this one lovable, no matter how that person changes. To love is to love the person one sees. As the apostle John reminds us: “He who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20).

[…]

We foolish people often think that when a person has changed for the worse we are exempted from loving him. What a confusion in language: to be exempt from loving. As if it were a matter of compulsion, a burden one wished to cast away! If this is how you see the person, then you really do not see him; you merely see unworthiness, imperfection, and admit thereby that when you loved him you did not really see him but saw only his excellence and perfections. True love is a matter of loving the very person you see. The emphasis is not on loving the perfections, but on loving the person you see, no matter what perfections or imperfections that person might possess.

He who loves the perfections he sees in a person does not see the person, and thus does not truly love, for such a person ceases to love as soon as the perfections cease. But even when the most distressing changes occur, the person does not thereby cease to be. Love does not vault into heaven, for it comes from heaven and with heaven. It steps down and thereby accomplishes loving the same person throughout all his changes, good or bad, because it sees the same person in all his changes. Human love is always flying after the beloved’s perfections. Christian love, however, loves despite imperfections and weaknesses. In every change love remains with him, loving the person it sees.

Alas, we talk about finding the perfect person in order to love him. Christianity teaches us that the perfect person is the one who limitlessly loves the person he sees. We humans always look upward for the perfect object, but in Christ love looks down to earth and loves the person it sees. If then, you wish to become perfect in love, strive to love the person you see, just as you see him, with all his imperfections and weaknesses. Love him as you see him when he is utterly changed, when he no longer loves you, when he perhaps turns indifferently away or turns to love someone else. Love him as you see him when he betrays and denies you.

Love the person you see and see the person you love.

Oh yeah that's the stuff.

Time is going very fast!

I have ambivalent feelings and thoughts about many animal activists. 

I agree with the ideas, but I do not like how some activists don't seem to understand that humans are also animals, and they also deserve to be treated good and have rights.

We really do need a more harmonious world for both animals and humans - so we should encourage open dialogue because that will hopefully help the animal activists understand the importance of empathy towards humans as well.

(11-09-2024, 04:29 AM)LightAngel Wrote: I have ambivalent feelings and thoughts about many animal activists. 

I agree with the ideas, but I do not like how some activists don't seem to understand that humans are also animals, and they also deserve to be treated good and have rights.

We really do need a more harmonious world for both animals and humans - so we should encourage open dialogue because that will hopefully help the animal activists understand the importance of empathy towards humans as well.

I agree with your reservations.

On the one hand, activism is a necessary component of sharing social ideas and promoting the kind of agitation that societies can often forgo out of acquiescence to a status quo.  On the other what NOW passes for it is more theater and narcissism than activism.  People apparently are being taught that the character of activism is one of megaphone-assisted monologue and waving some flag while single-mindedly focusing on "the important thing."  Then bulldozing anything and everything that stand before the activist.  This is a mistake.

"Agitate, agitate!" said Franklin Douglas... but I feel he didn't mean "set fire to the edifice."  He did not mean "bring forth destructions and conflict in the name of your cause."  As most activist seem to be trained (or indoctrinated) to do.  And of course it goes hand in hand with those who disagree characterizing all activism as destructive and offensive, even if it isn't. 

I see the net result of todays' animal activism in the myriad YouTube offerings of staged 'animal rescue' shorts, and 'the animal was so grateful' entries as well.  Produced half by AI imagery, and the other half by exploitation of 'tug at your heartstrings' music... it repulses me...

As if we couldn't possibly coexist with nature without their narrative to accompany the effort.

This is where they install the "stuff":

Quote:With the vast majority of the action hidden from prying eyes, perhaps it’s to be expected that most enthusiasts are unfamiliar with the fact that the Blue Oval has been digging into the Missouri bedrock for 70 years. You don’t have to be a Bond villain to appreciate the privacy, convenience, and stability of the caves

https://www.hagerty.com/media/automotive...city-cave/