The modern political landscape is much more complex than you realize. The complexities are recent in coming. Do you know what they are?
It is generally true that most abstract or general principles are best illuminated by getting down to cases, the nitty-gritty, the nuts and bolts of the thing. Take the Dershowitz-Prager debate, for instance. Though the subject matter is ostensibly the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, its import transcends this by now all too familiar and perhaps over-discussed topic; what is being said is far less interesting or important than what is being left out. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this exchange, let me recap.…
Article comments
— go to most recent comments26 - Roger Nowosielski
That's why I told you you remind me of Nancy: bright, vivacious, sharp mind and silver tongue.
27 - Cindy D
i like classic actors and actresses. no heroes though. different era
Michael Shermer is a skeptic he founded this magazine
28 - Cindy D
oh :-) sorry
29 - Roger Nowosielski
Wicca is not at all what most people suppose. They have quite a positive spin on it today - celebration of nature, womanhood, etc. I believed it all along until I tasted the bitterness of her curse.
30 - Roger Nowosielski
Just clicked on it. Its GOTHIC. No?
31 - Cindy D
Gothic? Oh no. It skeptic. you know Science, critical thinking, reason. non-superstition.
32 - Roger Nowosielski
#27,
You missed it by a generation. What a pity? Illusions are good.
33 - Cindy D
I am not against wiccans. superstition is beyond me. something i grew out of. it leaves one...what should i say. unable to tell truth from fiction. hopelessly lost not knowing what's real.
34 - Roger Nowosielski
All right. I've give it a closer look.
35 - Cindy D
no they aren't. they cause one to look down the wrong avenues endlessly and disasterously
36 - Roger Nowosielski
Hey, look at the heading of BC: World Witchcraft: 10 Day Free Trial. Talking about coincidence!
37 - Roger Nowosielski
Yeah, I know, but rationality ain't fun. It's good to lose yourself once in a while in a world of dreams.
I think we humans have plenty of untapped powers, though. I had telekinetic powers once. Scared the living daylight out of me.
38 - Cindy D
lol.
I have a softspot for a certain gentle type of new ager.
most i don't. most i don't like. they can be the most ruthless people i have ever known. lost in some fantasy world. unable to distinguish truth from fiction, wright from wrong.
they end up being 50x worse than capitalists. they take a stone that sells at a gem show for $1 and put a spell on it, then sell it to their community for $50
at least one knows what Colgate is selling
39 - Cindy D
that's not love of community. they are rationalizers of their own greed.
40 - Cindy D
i have plenty of fun. and lately even more as i expand outside my own small family
41 - Cindy D
dreams, yes. it's good. as long as you know you are dreaming
42 - Cindy D
she really cursed you? not just the character?
43 - Roger Nowosielski
Are you talking about . . .? And how come you know so many of them? Sound's like Witches' Sabath.
I've seen a Black Mass celebration on top of Mt. Davidson, SF (Twin Peaks). It IS scary!
44 - Cindy D
i tried a lot of things.
45 - Cindy D
i peeked in, but could never enter. i always had this feeling that i didn't understand whatever, couldn't grasp it.
never believed.
46 - Cindy D
i believed in skepticism, tried to make a community there. not my cup of tea. not really the community. it lacked something.
not for real..? eh? black mass?
47 - Roger Nowosielski
Cindy,
That's the beauty of my book, kind of kiss&tell. It's true crime. I was even tempted (in a rare moment of insanity) to do what I describe in my novel, if only to make fiction come true. All the email correspondence in there (about 100 pages or so) is verbatim. What you see is what you get.
48 - Cindy D
did you believe in it?
49 - Cindy D
cool! :-)
but really what does one do at a black mass?
50 - Cindy D
I meant cool about your book, not about black masses. i'd probably fall asleep at one. it would bore me.
51 - Cindy D
(wonders about blood sacrifices)
52 - Roger Nowosielski
Maybe you are not part of the inner sanctum. You have to get initiated first, don't you know that. Only then the secrets are revealed to you.
"Rosemary's Baby" was a neat picture, though. I like Polanski, but my favorite film maker today is David Lynch. And "Twin Peaks" is still close to the top. He's a genius.
53 - Cindy D
i have heard of but not whatched twin peaks
54 - Cindy D
secrets lol. a bunch of people pretending to be witches
I've been trick or treating
55 - Cindy D
i have a recommendation for you. i think you'll like these. my favorite, very favorite film maker. he's made two films (sadly)
56 - Roger Nowosielski
I think they just celebrate their atheism, or whatever. But it's not all that different from the old pagan rites - e.g., The Rite of Springs (Stravinski), or any of the Dionysus cults. It's a form of individual empowerment - oneness with Nature.
Ervin Goffman, the sociologist, has an interesting take on that. "Asylums" is his famous book, but "Presentation of Self in Everyday Life" is a great study - showing how much of our behavior is really a form of role-enactment. These pagan/shaman rites were a kind of psycho-drama. Very insightful material.
57 - Cindy D
The Wife
and
What Happened was...
58 - Cindy D
I like drumming.
Do they do that? (Have you ever?) Community drumming?
59 - Roger Nowosielski
No! They were just chanting. But it was unearthly. Who made those pictures?
60 - Cindy D
Imagine a room filled with people. All with some sort of percussion instrument (anything from drums to spoons, blocks, whatever is laying around). It ends up amazing.
61 - Roger Nowosielski
Regarding Goffman, role-enactment is a form of becoming. It's like becoming transformed. Ritual is a kind of performance.
62 - Cindy D
What pictures?
My aunt had a miriam makeba album, we all made a conga line through the house every visit to "pata pata"
63 - Cindy D
This person? "The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life" ?
64 - Cindy D
A role why not, as long as one know it's a role.
65 - Cindy D
miriam makeba just died recently. what pictures did you mean?
66 - Cindy D
transformation is a thing i welcome
it's growth and change, renewal
67 - Cindy D
i'm not convinced, you'll have to do better.
68 - Roger Nowosielski
I meant the flicks. Yeah. It's a great book: chuck full of insights into human behavior. This thread, if you haven't noticed, has already split into at least 10 little fibers. I can't possibly respond to each and every one, however good I am at multi-tasking.
69 - Cindy D
or give me a link to read
70 - Roger Nowosielski
I can't do with. Haven't got the technique down path yet. Later, you may give me a hint or two.
About role-playing and role-enactment. The whole idea is to loose yourself in it; it's part of the ritual. Only then a kind of transformation takes place, an initiation, whatever. Like catharsis.
Don't knock it down. Christianity evolved out of gnosticism and pagan cults.
71 - Cindy D
egads, that is your sales technique? christianity?
72 - Cindy D
i am an atheist
73 - Cindy D
better try a different marketing plan lol
74 - Cindy D
what they are doing in the Israel Palestine threads now? that religion.
worse than most things i can think of, i stay out of there, how can you talk sense to religion?
75 - Roger Nowosielski
I am not using any Wikipedia here, just store of knowledge. "Drawing Down the Moon" by Margot Adler is a good account of modern witchcraft. I got it because I wanted to learn about Nancy. But I was disappointed. It didn't go enough into the occult. Mind you, I was inquisitive about her, not anything else. Still, it's very comprehensive and full of references.