CLODS WITH TITS CAN LEAD TO JOY AT DU

Some recent threads suggest posting media hype anywhere on a site that bears a name like Democratic Underground is equally “UNREAL” but not this one.

This thread is not another endeavor celebrating or berating clods that perch upon the summits of fame and stardom. Perhaps less-famous clods can also make valid observations and contribute to DU, in some small way.

Certainly, well-meaning reminders that present the importance of political sites focusing on life and death issues or lofty ideals, like freedom, shimmer in validity. Still, who can claim command over validity in such a sea of ideas, without capsizing their credibility?

Just as a migrating nose on brother Michael, triggers some people to talk, a subtle slip of his sister’s tit tempts other tongues to wag. Like any media, DU entices readers and writers with tantalizing tidbits of fame, competition or sexuality. Each thread here intertwines with others to spin primal pieces of patch-work into a vast on-line quilt of humanity. Over-analyzing a post or pointing out minor human failings, might offer momentary feelings of power but sinking to such depths sails the psyche into a stormy state.

Without weaving Freudian fabric too deeply into DU, succumbing to innate focus on the slightly-sexual allure of competition or momentary fame can create conflict as other members try to rise above basic cloddish impulses.

Perhaps the mammary mystique once surrounding Ms. Jackson fails to flash a psyche as hotly as the lasting consequences of occupying Iraq but light events and sensational headlines sooth the soul with sweet diversions that sing softer than waves rolling ashore.

Surely, some can rightly claim reports of a bare bosom bends public focus away from bringing back the bounty of freedom that our Founders put forth for future generations to suckle, while growing prosperous, without feeling the fangs of war tearing their families apart. Hopefully, others will still feel free to express shock, lust or disgust over rampant mistrust of posts that offer media diversions.

Unlike Ms. Jackson, baring my breast will not enhance fame and fortune but perhaps it will reveal what’s left of a heart.

After all, what difference will one bare breast make to future generations?

While launching a lengthy lecture on lactation, lacks legitimacy, let nothing in this post lead to a lie: Milk is a matter of life and death for billions of new-born babies.

In human terms, “billion” becomes a basic unit to describe all the other clods that tie interwoven populations of our species together into a Pangaea-like continent.

By comparison, nearly 3,000 deaths might pale before billions of clods begging to live but no clod is an island. Each of those deaths diminishes other clods, who will feel the loss, until they too wash into the sea of oblivion.

Tonight one clod cries because daddy can’t came home from Iraq for Christmas, while a tinnier clod dies alone in Africa, without ever tasting mother’s-milk. Perhaps some clods seem more important than others. Perhaps they are. Perhaps as some insignificant clod cries during birth, it brings joy to distant hearts that hope for only sustenance, peace and a chance for their tiny addition to share a wonderful gift with the Pangaea of Humanity.

From one distant clod to another, all I can offer is a deep desire that someone, maybe you, will hear a distant cry of renewal each day. Perhaps a tiny clod among billions will make JOY TO THE WORLD more than just a song, if we can find the time to dig through the breast-work of lies that isolates us on this remote, barren island.

Just as no one is an island and each tiny loss diminishes the Continent of Humanity, no sea is too deep to cross, as each wondrous birth regenerates us all. Admittedly it is the humblest gift any clod can offer but please know that it comes from the heart when I say, JOY TO THE WORLD my friends!

I really don't know clods at all.

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola personifies the Humanist. Before the birth Pico in 1463 CE, Humanism, which focuses on relationships between humanity and the Divine, became a social force in Italy. In his Oration on the Dignity of Man, Pico states that you have “free choice and dignity, so you may fashion yourself into whatever form you choose. To you is granted power of degrading yourself into lower forms of life, like the beasts, and to you is granted power, contained in your intellect and judgment, to be reborn into higher forms, like the Divine." Almost a manifesto for the Renaissance, his speech affirms the importance of a human quest for enlightenment in philosophical terms.

Now, this Bell tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die.

PERCHANCE he for whom this Bell tolls, may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; And perchance I may think my self so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that.

All mankind is of one Author, and is one volume; when one Man dies, one Chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every Chapter must be so translated;

As therefore the Bell that rings to a Sermon, calls not upon the Preacher only, but upon the Congregation to come; so this Bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness.

The Bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute, that that occasion wrought upon him, he is united. Who casts not up his Eye to the Sun when it rises? but who takes off his Eye from a Comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell, which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it from that bell, which is passing a piece of himself out of this world? No man is an Island, entire of it self; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a Clod be washed away by the Sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a Promontory were, as well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

John Donne - John Donne was born in London in 1572 to a prosperous Roman Catholic family - a precarious thing at a time when anti-Catholic sentiment was rife in England.

In 1593, Donne's brother Henry died of a fever in prison after being arrested for giving sanctuary to a proscribed Catholic priest. This made Donne begin to question his faith.

Donne was beginning a promising career. In 1601, Donne became MP for Brackley, and sat in Queen Elizabeth's last Parliament. But in the same year, he secretly married Lady Egerton's niece, seventeen-year-old Anne More, daughter of Sir George More, Lieutenant of the Tower, and effectively committed career suicide. Donne wrote to the livid father, saying:

"Sir, I acknowledge my fault to be so great as I dare scarce offer any other prayer to you in mine own behalf than this, to believe that I neither had dishonest end nor means. But for her whom I tender much more than my fortunes or life (else I would, I might neither joy in this life nor enjoy the next) I humbly beg of you that she may not, to her danger, feel the terror of your sudden anger."

Sir George had Donne thrown in Fleet Prison for some weeks, along with his cohorts Samuel and Christopher Brooke who had aided the couple's clandestine affair. Donne was dismissed from his post, and for the next decade had to struggle near poverty to support his growing family.

Donne had refused to take Anglican orders in 1607, but King James persisted, finally announcing that Donne would receive no post or preferment from the King, unless in the church. In 1615, Donne reluctantly entered the ministry and was appointed a Royal Chaplain later that year.

Just as Donne's fortunes seemed to be improving, Anne Donne died, on 15 August, 1617, aged thirty-three, after giving birth to a stillborn. Seven of their children survived their mother's death. Struck by grief, Donne wrote the seventeenth Holy Sonnet, "Since she whom I lov'd hath paid her last debt." According to Donne's friend and biographer, Izaak Walton, Donne was thereafter 'crucified to the world'.

Donne's private meditations, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, written while he was convalescing from a serious illness, were published in 1624. The most famous of these is undoubtedly Meditation 17, which includes the immortal lines "No man is an island" and "never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee."

but I was promised pictures.

Joan of Arc, c. 1485. The only known portrait for which she sat did not survive, so all depictions of her represent artistic license.

important thing on earth re: humans.


yet the worldly race of men daily oppress and denigrate women.

joy is relative

Everything is "relative." For example, to me beauty is relative to perception, taking on various forms. Undeniably, youthful femininity possesses external beauty, though, when anything occurs in such an immature form, it lacks depth and the luster, only years of tribulation can offer her. While time might etch the surface, it polishes the higher forms with a glow of wisdom. Those who dare to "oppress or denigrate" any form of Human Dignity, only diminish themselves. I do not judge a pig because it wallows in slop but even when surrounded by pigs, there is no reason for me to plummet into the hog-wallow. it's all about choices and with "free will and intellect," we attain a chance at making better choices each second.

nt

relative to EVERYTHING... I choose to expand the previous analogy:

One might perceive that distancing ourselves from such crude pig-sty behavior is the best option but doing that defeats the whole purpose, by allowing a belief that the connection with people who choose to degrade themselves into beasts can be broken.

instead of turning away, never to look into their wallow, I say gaze into it deeply. Perhaps someone tossed a pearl before the swine. By perpetually looking away we lose sight of the hidden treasure. Furthermore, why not toss an occasional bucket of slop upon the pigs, since they obviously enjoy their wallow. Last but not least, I want plenty of slop before me, if I someday see a pearl shining from the depths. I might want to wallow a while with the other swine, after I dive in to get it and there's nothing worse than a cozy, dry pig-sty to certain beastly clods. Whether I toss out pearls or slop, the choice of how to feel or perceive, not only these words but also EVERYTHING, remains up to you. You can make a better or worse choice in one minute, tomorrow or never.

but here's a word that isn't relative.

three.

:)

The OP and subsequent posts offer pearls in hog-wallows and wings for ascension. Whether you choose to soar like an eagle or wallow like a pig, please enjoy the experience and realize that your initial choice is not restrictive, until you perceive it as a such. Have a soaring Christmas and a wallowing New-Year nashville_brook!

too much coffay this morning. i'm seeing 3's. they are pretty.

If Jung could see
where you go with three
He might agree
with you and me
He sees our three
universally

In a Jungian approach to viewing diverse cultures in geographic isolation from a religious perspective the three takes on even broader meaning. In this application three becomes an Archetype in the vast Collective Unconscious of Humanity.

<snip>

There you go man, keep as cool as you can.
Face piles
And piles
Of trials
With smiles.
It riles them to believe
that you perceive
the web they weave
And keep on thinking free.

from The Moody Blues "In the Beginning"

Something unusual here....a post to make one think

Thank you!!

And may we, in this season of joy and love, learn to have this comforting energy with us always, rather than treating it as a comfortable suit, putting it on and taking it off as the penchant strikes us.

Simon & Garfunkel Still a man hears, what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." I wonder if "lie," "lie," "lie," relates to multiple self-lies people choose to embrace.

I have a cousin who was a professor of electrical engineering. A phrase he often used was "who will design the next generation of software?" He taught young people, using computers, that had no notion of how to think original thoughts. I've often thought about that: We get so much "stuff" fed to us pre-digested by all the talking heads, that we aren't required to do any critical thinking about anything.

I"ve often considered that a university not considered "liberal" by the neocons is not a place of learning. "Learning" by definition is "to become informed", which is not a prerogative of those who wish to control others. A good teacher (instructor, professor, mentor) is one who invites others to use their mind, to think for themselves, rather than follow others on a rote path which may well lead to nowhere.

What I see as the major problem in this day and age is the lack of critical thinking. The ability to do research, to find opposing views, and then to make a decision based on a person's own belief system and to act on that decision. Its much easier to listen to someone who sets themself up as an "expert" on a subject than it is to learn. What most people don't realize is that "expert" can be defined as "an old drip under pressure".

Sound bites are easier to digest than a seven-course dissertation.

Let us consider: Are those things that are easiest to digest the most nutritious items on the menu? Once, while eating oyster stew, someone swallowed a pearl, which took no digestive work at all. Ease during the non-process offered no real nourishment. Ultimately, the pearl ended up back in the wallow, which perhaps is as it should be, since it is all simply a question of balance.

that is unless it asks one.