Hey, Mom! The Explanation.

Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.

Friday, November 30, 2018

A Sense of Doubt blog post #1379 - Why Nazis Were Obsessed With Atlantis


A Sense of Doubt blog post #1379 - Why Nazis Were Obsessed With Atlantis

I have always been mad about Atlantis.

And the Nazis intrigue me.

It's on my to-do list to read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and I will probably pull the trigger on that item next year sometime.

For now, a filler share because I am deeply immersed in Grading Hell, but then, when am I not?

This is a great article, and I LOVE THE BIG THINK.

from - https://bigthink.com/culture-religion/why-the-nazis-were-obsessed-with-finding-the-lost-city-of-atlantis


Why the Nazis were obsessed with finding the lost city of Atlantis

The Nazis actively searched for Atlantis, seeing it as important to their mythology.






  • The mythical city of Atlantis was first mentioned in Plato's writings.
  • Top Nazis, including Heimlich Himmler, tried to find the city through expeditions.
  • The island was key to Nazi thinking about the "Aryan race".



You might think Spielberg and Lucas just made up all the run-ins Indiana Jones kept having with the Nazis. But the truth is likely stranger than fiction - the Nazis were not only obsessed with the mystical and the undiscovered, they staked a large part of their strategy to winning World War 2 on it. And that may be ultimately why they lost.
While beliefs in fringe sciences, pagan religions and the occult spread like wildfire throughout Germany in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the myth of Atlantis had a truly profound impact that was weaved into the emerging Nazi philosophy.

Historically, Atlantis first came to prominence as an island mentioned within an allegory in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 330 B.C. In these stories, Atlantis is regarded as an enemy force that came to attack the Athenian nation-state. Athens repelled the attack, according to Plato, with island of Atlantis eventually losing support of the Gods and sinking into the ocean. While Plato didn't really say all that much more about Atlantis, he pointed to the supposed location of the island as somewhere "beyond the Pillars of Hercules" (a.k.a. the Straits of Gibraltar). Still, this wasn't much to go on and there's not been strong other evidence to corroborate the existence of Atlantis as more than a fictional creation.

In Nazi lore, however, the legends of Atlantis got mixed with Aryan myths, leading to a resurgence of the concept.

Athanasius Kircher's map of Atlantis, locating it in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, from Mundus Subterraneus 1669, published in Amsterdam. South is on the top in the map's orientation.
Eric Kurlander, the professor of history at Stetson University, traced the strange movements in Germany of about a hundred years ago in his book "Hitler's Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich". He contends that one of the most influential beliefs was Ariosophy, championed by Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels. This esoteric doctrine "prophesied the resurgence of a lost Aryan civilization peopled by Nordic 'God Men.'"
Lanz told the myths of these "God Men" in a magazine called Ostara which he claims to have given in 1909 to none other than a young Adolf Hitler. In the issues, muscular Aryans defended barely-dressed blonde women from scary "ape-men", as wrote Michael Dirda in the Washington Post.

Were there actually such Aryans whose lineage can be traced to the Nazi ideals? The word "Aryan" generally designated people of Indo-European heritage but in racist Nazi thinking, the idea of the "Aryan race" has come to mean the supposed existence of a distinct and superior race of Germanic people – a proposition not supported by facts. The only historical Aryans have been Indo-Iranian people who spread their languages throughout Eurasia from 4000 to 1000 BC.

Germans of early 20th century, however, were looking to root themselves in ancient traditions, pillaging whatever information they found appealing. Lanz's 1905 book "The Theozoology, or the Science of Sodom's Apelings and the God's Electrons" incorporated Hindu mythology – a common feature of German theosophical texts of the time which claimed that somewhere in India and Tibet were hidden societies of ancient Atlanteans or "secret masters".

This possible connection to India and Tibet was a particular obsession for Heimlich Himmler, the ruthless head of the SS and the Gestapo police. For the Aryan myth to be proven true, he figured, the actual location and history of the Aryans needed to be uncovered. Himmler spent a decade on a semi-mystical project that had an SS unit called the Ahnenerbe (Ancestral Heritage), which included archaeologists and scientists, searching the globe for the lost Aryans of Atlantis.

As the historian Sir Richard Evans of Cambridge University pointed out: "The Nazis saw world history in terms of a struggle between races and survival of the fittest. They thought all races were inferior to the Aryans. Himmler wanted to press forward with a new religion, including sun worship and old gods. He wanted the SS to become a kind of cult, or Aryan aristocracy."


Heinrich Himmler



In 1938, Himmler's interests (which also revolved around finding the Holy Grail of Christian mythology) resulted in sending an expedition team of Nazi scientists, led by the explorer and zoologist Ernst Schäfer, to the Himalayas. The location was chosen specifically thanks to the work of Herman Wirth, a contemporary scholar of ancient religions. Wirth conjectured that there is a reason for why similar-looking symbols can be found in different parts of the world. That reason is the race of people who lived in Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean (likely between Portugal and Britain). The scholar proposed that survivors of sinking Atlantis fled to high places, vowing to avoid the sea that ruined their civilization initially. That's how the descendants supposedly ended up in Tibet.

During the Tibet expedition, Nazi scientists collected thousands of specimens while comparing locals to a list of facial features and concluded that they descended from the Aryans. "Hitler and his anthropologists thought that by measuring people's heads you could tell which race they were," explained Sir Richard.

Ernst Schäfer during his last expedition to Tibet. 1938.


Declaring that they found out what happened to Atlantis was a boost to the myth-fueled Nazi war machine. Becoming convinced that Tibetans were survivors of Atlantis also hardened Himmler's views on racial purity. He decided that the Aryan master race was by now much weaker due to intermixing and needed to be purified (via the ensuing Holocaust).

The mission to Tibet was not the only such endeavor by the Nazis. Similar efforts to find the Aryans were dispatched to Sweden, Scotland, France and Iceland.

One German archaeologist (and eventual SS commander) Edmund Kisspromoted the idea that Bolivia's famous historical site called Tiwanaku was actually Atlantis. He believed in the elaborate and outlandish World Ice Theory, which also had support of Adolf Hitler and other top Nazis. One of the theory's postulates was that Earth at some point collided with its moon, a cataclysm that led to the destruction of Atlantis and an ice age on the planet. Trying to survive their new glacier-filled reality, ancient Atlanteans were believed to have fled to the high Andes, where life could still survive. That's how they would have ended up in Bolivia.


Hypothetical reconstructions of Tiwanaku in Edmund Kiss's book Das gläserne Meer. 1930.

While Kiss's work found enthusiastic support in Germany, especially as he wrote statements proclaiming that "the works of art and the architectural style of the prehistoric city are certainly not of Indian origin." He added that rather they were "probably the creations of Nordic men who arrived in the Andean highlands as representatives of a special civilization."

Nazis publicized such "findings" about the Nordic city of Tiwanaku in Hitler youth publications and other party newspapers. Kiss's larger Himmler-sponsored expedition to Bolivia never materialized, however, due to the start of World War 2, as writes historian Matthew Gildner.

Check out this fascinating documentary on "The Nazi Quest for the Holy Grail" which includes the search for Atlantis here:









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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1811.30 -10:10

- Days ago = 1245 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.

Thursday, November 29, 2018

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #1134 - Satchel, the sacred heart - Throwback Thursday 1811.29

Satchel when first adopted August 2012
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #1134 - Satchel, the sacred heart - Throwback Thursday 1811.29 - Sense of Doubt #1378

Hi Mom,

I just wrote to you yesterday because I did not re-frame the "Importance of Socks" post that I started months ago and finally finished from a HEY MOM post to a SENSE OF DOUBT only post, and since this one feels like it has to be a HEY MOM post, I now have two in a row. So maybe Sunday will be a T-shirt reprint so as to keep with my "only two HEY MOMs per week" policy that I set for myself when I stopped daily broadcast of HEY MOM back on July sixth, 2018. Wow... was just earlier this year? It feels like a lifetime ago.

I decided to go with a Throwback picture of Satchel today instead of something from my childhood file because I am not sure if I have ever shown a picture of either puppy as a Throwback pic.




I was thinking the other night how Satchel was first in my heart, the first dog I lived with, shared a bed with, cared for day in and day out ALL THE TIME, my companion, my colleague as a mostly work at home instructor, my best friend, and so, think of "heart and soul," then Ellory is my soul because she's somewhat elusive, wise, deeply spiritual and hold to the highest value of existence, much like Winnie the Pooh: Ellory just is.

But then there are times when I acknowledge that Satchel is the soul, like soulmate, a deep bond, though perhaps more so with Liesel who refers to Satchel as her soulmate, and I should not infringe on that, and then Ellory is very much the heart as she spends all day in bed because she loves bed the most; as she licks my face over and over as I am driving her somewhere fun, sometimes making it hard to see; as she rolls her whole body on top of me as we are waking up in the morning and nuzzles her snout right into the space between my neck and shoulder for kisses and snuggles.

So it's both, kind of like Quantum Physics. They're both; they're neither; they're so much more.

I have shared these before, but they are worth repeating.





The other day I started to cry in class and I had to stop talking for literally about 30 seconds before I was able to master my emotions and speak. Then it happened again talking one-on-one with a student at a different school in a conference.

The crying in class came about because I started to talk about this:

I REMEMBER YOU Hey Mom #1294.

I am not even sure why I also started to cry in front of a student. I was telling her how awesome she is, and maybe it was the look on her face, maybe it was the sense that maybe she does not hear that enough (or at all).

Anyway, I like being a role model to show my students, especially the young men, that being a truly confident and secure man means feeling secure enough to cry, to talk about crying in public, or even to cry in public. Though, I will admit that I am a work in progress. I am not sure if I really am confident and secure, but I am trying my best.

So, I like to show that sensitive side, but really, this is RIDICULOUS. I am not sure, Mom, why my emotions are all at the surface right now, but they are.

Just starting to describe the movie Christopher Robin with Ewan McGregor wrecked me, still, months later. Maybe I need to see it again to make it less of a sharp edged sword to all my emotions.

I was sharing with a friend the other day about the crying and all, and she asked if I had seen the Dumbo trailer.

As the number one movie that throughout my whole life chokes me up any time it's mentioned because of all the mother-child stuff, Dumbo is going to really wreck me.



That's really all for today, but just in case, I made those tear ducts flow, here's a change of pace:



https://www.newsarama.com/42836-jason-momoa-explains-how-aquaman-goes-to-the-bathroom-in-his-suit.html

Thank you, Mom. I am the way I am because of you.

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Reflect and connect.

Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you, Mom.

I miss you so very much, Mom.

Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.

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- Days ago = 1244 days ago

- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1811.29 - 10:10

NEW (written 1708.27) NOTE on time: I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of your death, Mom, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of your death, Mom. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom.

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #1133 - The Importance of Socks

 Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #1133 - The Importance of Socks

(Sense of Doubt #1377)

Hi Mom,

Sock are really important.

I have been thinking about this post and planning it for quite a while. It's meant to be a short reflection on the importance of not just any socks, but the right socks.

Here's a thing I have yet to find here in PDX that is quite as good as Kalamazoo.

In Kalamazoo, I had Gazelle Sports right down town and since 2011 very close to my house, and they have great socks. Though they stopped carrying Wigwam socks, which is partially the purpose for this blog post to provide resources to get these socks. I had on my to-do list going to OKUN BROTHERS in Kalamazoo for two years before I left and each time I have gone back just to buy Wigwam Socks, but I have never been able to work the errand into the schedule. 

I have discovered that I am a quarter-height sock guy, except when it's cold and I want the crew height. I have played Ultimate in knee-high (or higher) before, but only when it's REALLY cold. The picture above left shows one of my two pairs of crew-height Smart Wool socks, which breathe very well, wick moisture, and yet are amazingly warm for me cold little toes when it's frosty and gelid around the house or when there's a pogonip in the neighborhood.

I also love my Smart Wool quarter heights. I have two pair of those, as well. I have tried low-cut and No-shows, and I hate them. The elastic wears and then they slip down under the rim of the shoe top and sometimes come off the heel entirely. Doesn't work for me. I know it works for some of you, but not me.





I have been loving Feetures Socks lately, and I am wearing them right now. These are quarter-height (of course), they wick moisture and fit snugly. They are just warm enough when they need to be and yet mostly cool and breathing.

I love these socks!!

When I play Ultimate, bike, run, walk the dogs, or hike, it's always the quarter heights from Smart Wool or Feetures. Though some times, as the pairs could be in the laundry, I wear the Wigwams, but mostly those are for knocking around the house. Though when it's cold, it's the crew height Smart Wool socks or the Balega socks.

I re-wear socks, though not after Ultimate, because I do not own enough pairs of the premium socks to keep up on the laundry if I tossed them in the hamper every day. I aim to fix this discrepancy, hence this blog post/

When we first moved in here, somehow one of the socks in my cushioned, deluxe pair of Balega socks went missing. I have never found it, which still makes me sad and angsty. 

This might work: BALEGA (but it's a search).

Out of the shower, I do wear light weight and sometimes tab or micro height socks. I have some nice Wigwams, Smart Wools, and even Wright Sock, whom I do like a lot.

So far, I have only found one store that I LOVE for socks in PDX which is Shortt Supply in Hood River. Last time, I was in Next Adventure and EVO, I did not shop socks, so I need to go back to see if these premier Portland recreation shops have what I want and need. Web sites show me that they do... :-)

Some people balk at paying $15-$30 for a pair of socks. I get it. I felt that way at one time, too, and I would instead opt for a pack of FIVE for the same price. BUT the premium socks are worth it, and they tend to last a LONG TIME. It's an investment that's just as important as shoes, which for me is now and always will be Brooks' Ghosts or Glycerins, though I have tried other Brooks models and other brands. I need Neutral Cushion, and these are the best. I am basically in socks and shoes all the time, with orthotic inserts, inside and and outside, at home, ALL THE TIME, so these concerns are REALLY important.

Oh that's funny. I just found out that Brooks is a Seattle company!

I suspect that ALL OF THESE COMPANIES are probably here in the PACIFIC Northwest, though I am not going to research that now.

So, that's my sock resource page.

High quality socks are very important for dry feet, warm feet, and comfort. Is that outrageous to pay $20 for a pair of socks with such deliveries that will survive multiple wearings long past the cheap, flimsy, uncomfortable packs of five that don't wick moisture and are not all that warm?

Of course it's not outrageous at all.

I hope I either reinforced your own sock love or convinced you on the importance of premium socks.

I also like this hand sanitizer to the right and have to find places to buy it out here.

You were always good with these things Mom: shopping for hand sanitizer, buying me socks.

Thanks for reading. More tomorrow.

I didn't even notice that this was still a HEY MOM post when I wrote it, which means two in a row...





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Reflect and connect.

Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you, Mom.

I miss you so very much, Mom.

Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.

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- Days ago = 1243 days ago

- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1811.28 - 10:10

NEW (written 1708.27) NOTE on time: I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of your death, Mom, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of your death, Mom. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom.

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

A Sense of Doubt blog post #1376 - Fire & Blood - Best Song of Fire and Ice Book?


A Sense of Doubt blog post #1376 - Fire & Blood - Best Song of Fire and Ice Book?

This is just a quick share to stay current. I am working on several original content posts, including what I am teaching next term at Concordia University, but I have no available time to finish them.

But this is cool and from Tor.com.

I wrote a bit about this book last week and included my social media post about it here:

https://sensedoubt.blogspot.com/2018/11/hey-mom-talking-to-my-mother-1132.html



Fire & Blood is the Best Song of Ice and Fire Book in 18 Years. But Will Anyone Read It?



What if George R. R. Martin wrote a new Song of Ice and Fire book… and no one wanted it?
Fire & Blood, the first doorstopper in a planned two-volume history of the entire Targaryen royal line of Westeros, arrives during a strained point in the relationship between author George R. R. Martin and readers of A Song of Ice and Fire. In the last 7 years, a steady stream of stop-gap book releases—The Lands of Ice and Fire, The World of Ice and Fire, The Wit and Wisdom of Tyrion Lannister, and so forth—have continually teased the possibility of a new ASOIAF book from the author while never actually delivering such, baking in the expectation that The Winds of Winter, touted as the next installment in the Song of Ice and Fire series, will never actually arrive.
The widespread popularity of HBO’s Game of Thrones has given that expectation a monstrous momentum far beyond the series’ core readership. Mention George R. R. Martin or The Winds of Winter in any conversation, regardless of context, and the immediate response is typically some version of “Finish the book!” Due to the rapidity of pop culture and the repetitive nature of the internet, the “finish the book!” response is now practically expected and, as a result, tedious.
That tedium pervades any discussion of George R. R. Martin and his works right now, regardless of how one feels about them, and into that context steps Fire & Blood. As a result, few fans of the Song of Ice and Fire series seem to even want the book: The pre-release hype thread for it on the ASOIAF subreddit is buried under speculation about The Winds of Winter and the most popular question on Goodreads about the title is, literally… “Does anyone actually want this?
And, you know, they might not. Which would be a shame, because I haven’t enjoyed a Song of Ice and Fire book this much since A Storm of Swords.
Even without the present-day context, Fire & Blood is an ambitious angle for George R. R. Martin to tackle. It’s technically a prequel to the main series, and the very idea of a prequel risks frustrating readers (or viewers) of an epic fantasy that has previously only provided a forward-traveling linear experience, like A Song of Ice and Fire. A prequel can feel cohesive if a saga is non-linear, like L.E. Modesitt, Jr’s Recluce, or if the linear saga itself has some big questions about the overall story or world that could only be properly conveyed by shifting the timeframe, like Star Wars. Although even then it can be a bit dodgy if the prequel focuses on stuff that just doesn’t seem all that important in comparison to long-standing questions that the fanbase naturally gravitate towards. (Was anyone…wondering…where to find the fantastic beasts?)
As if that weren’t a tall enough mountain for George R. R. Martin to scale, Fire & Blood is also written in a different style of prose than the primary Song of Ice and Fire novels; featuring a dry, staid, objective tone that even the book’s own promotional copy dubs in line with “the scope and grandeur of [Edward] Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
So… buckle the fuck up, readers…is what I assume is being communicated here.
For all of the above reasons, I was initially dubious about the worthiness of Fire & Blood. Tor.com has been even been hosting an excerpt of one of its chapters for over five years now. Called “The Princess and The Queen (Or, The Blacks and The Greens),” it doesn’t really capture the thrill of the Song of Ice and Fire novels:
There were two principal claimants to the Iron Throne upon the death of King Viserys I Targaryen: his daughter Rhaenyra, the only surviving child of his first marriage, and Aegon, his eldest son by his second wife. Amidst the chaos and carnage brought on by their rivalry, other would-be kings would stake claims as well, strutting about like mummers on a stage for a fortnight or a moon’s turn, only to fall as swiftly as they had arisen.
Even with the commentary, that is some stiff exposition, so I was understandably skeptical about an entire book’s worth of that. But I needn’t have worried. While that paragraph from “The Princess and The Queen” is in Fire & Blood largely unaltered, it’s not really indicative of the book as a whole. While the prose is exactly as shown above, the overall narrative of the book is wonderfully fluid. The details of the Targaryens’ history start simple and pure, building and building so that by the time you get to the above paragraph you’ve well internalized the expository details, allowing Martin’s funnier, looser-tongued characterizations to shine through.
Fire & Blood also benefits enormously from adhering to a strictly chronological telling of the Targaryen dynasty, which evokes the same propulsive storytelling we’re accustomed to from the main novels of A Song of Ice and Fire. (And which we lost a bit of, thanks to the mixed narratives of A Feast For Crows and A Dance With Dragons; hence my enjoyment of Fire & Blood over those two volumes.) Each chapter transfers clearly to the next, king to king, era to era, and this clarity in itself creates an interesting dramatic tension, because we’re not at all accustomed to events in Westeros being that clear-cut. When the Targaryens themselves finally overwhelm the narrative, it comes almost as a relief. (Is it too late to change that chapter’s name to “Too Many Targaryens!”, George? Asking for a friend. For me. Asking for me. I’m your friend.) Such is the magic of Fire & Blood that, by that point in the story, dragons furiously and repeatedly fighting each other feels like the most politically realistic turn of events possible. (Bonus in that it’s a dragon fight that we may never get in the main sequence novels.)
Something that many readers may overlook in considering Fire & Blood, but which I am overjoyed that George R. R. Martin did not, is that telling a history of the Targaryens also means telling the history of the technological and sociocultural development of Westeros itself. There’s constant worldbuilding activity chronicled within Fire & Blood because, well, most of the Targaryen kings are literally building their world. They impose infrastructure, economic and trade policies, and institute sweeping law reforms. They dance delicately and indelicately with the high kings of Westeros, the church, Dorne, and other city-states of the world. One Targaryen king comes stunningly close to instituting a successful prototype of constitutional monarchy. Fire & Blood almost reads like a history of the United States of America, as the events and overall tone of the reigns of many of the initial Targaryens coincide with broad eras in the history of the U.S., from the Founding era, to the Era of Good Feelings, to Jacksonian democracy, to the Civil War, and so on.
There are also lots and lots of Easter eggs scattered throughout the text for readers who have really pored through the Song of Ice and Fire novels and their associated materials. Martin seemingly answers a lot of open questions about his world (including many I’ve asked outright here on Tor.com, such as how Targaryen dragons make the flight over the Narrow Sea), giving greater detail but leaving the question open just enough to encourage further speculation. These Easter eggs tend to be located within quick secondary tales about notable figures associated with a specific Targaryen family, but they come so often and so rapidly that you’re never sure what’s going to get revealed next. The surprises, some of which have massive implications, keep the text lively.
And there are mysteries, as well, even in stories like these where the ending is known. But we can delve into them later.
Fire & Blood was a great surprise to me. I found myself becoming deeply emotionally invested in the Targaryens, thrilling when they achieved great victories and lamenting when they succumbed to their more idiotic desires. (And they have a lot of idiotic desires.) This book feels like A Song of Ice and Fire. And you know how I know?
Because I want the next book right away.
Chris Lough is the Director of Tor.com.



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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - date - 1811.27 - 10:10

- Days ago = 1242 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.

Monday, November 26, 2018

A Sense of Doubt blog post #1375 - With this Kiss, I Pass The Key - A Musical Monday Mix for 1811.26


A Sense of Doubt blog post #1375 - With this Kiss, I Pass The Key - A Musical Monday Mix for 1811.26

Welcome the Musical Monday. This the URL link to the YOU TUBE mix.

This one is as much class prep as it is a mix to enjoy.

Here's stuff for my students -- whom I refer to as "Wonderfuls" so when I write to them I write "Greetings Wonderfuls" -- and our class work this week and specifically today, Monday, November 26th as we return from break.

I just conceived of an assignment for my students for class today as we are working on analysis.

I am going to show them the first video, Kate Bush's "This Women's Work" from her 1989 album The Sensual World as first featured in the 1988 John Hughes film She's Having a Baby.

I am going to ask them to watch the video (take notes) and examine the lyrics, and then compare the content of "This Woman's Work" to the line from Kate Bush's "Houdini" from the 1984 album The Dreaming: "With this kiss, I pass the key" after I explain the background to them about Houdini's life and what that image means.

HOUDINI BACKGROUND: To drum up sales for his touring magic shows, Harry Houdini would always offer to be locked up in cities where he was performing. Sometimes in jail cells, some times in crates dropped in rivers (in all temperatures), manacled with hand cuffs. chains, locked mail bags, strait jackets, and more, Houdini would escape from them all. To get out of strait jackets, he could dislocate his shoulder. He could keep lock picks deep in his throat without swallowing, so he could go "ahhh" and have his mouth and tonsils inspected and vouched clear, and then he could pick any lock.

In one city, a clever locksmith made a pair of handcuffs that could not be opened with a key or with lock picks. Once locked on anyone's wrists, they could not be taken off. Houdini had to be sawed out of them. After this incident and damage to his credibility and claims to be able to escape from anything, he insisted that all locks be shown to operate with keys before he would agree to be locked in them. As a measure of trust, his wife would hold the keys.

Houdini was usually locked up naked or mostly naked. Before he was shut away in a locked box or bag or jail cell, he and his wife would kiss: "for good luck." Houdini's wife would always pass him at least one key with this kiss. Since he had already been inspected, this key pass would go undetected. After escaping, he would slip the key back to his wife before the keys were returned to the owners of the locks.

Hence, Bush's picture for The Dreaming and the line from the song "Houdini": "With this kiss, I pass the key."

I am giving Kate Bush background in class, but the link to the juxtaposition of the "Don't Give Up" sign at Lower Columbia College and the Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush video "Don't Give Up" is here:

https://sensedoubt.blogspot.com/2018/11/hey-mom-talking-to-my-mother-1132.html

And so it goes.

And yes, this is a Kate Bush mix without "Wuthering Heights" as I am saving that for another mix.



"This Woman's Work" - Kate Bush

Pray God you can cope / I stand outside this woman's work / This woman's world
Ooh, it's hard on the man/ Now his part is over / Now starts the craft of the father
I know you've got a little life in you yet/ I know you've got a lot of strength left
I know you've got a little life in you yet/ I know you've got a lot of strength left
I should be crying, but I just can't let it show / I should be hoping, but I can't stop thinking
Of all the things I should've said/ That I never said/
All the things we should've done/ Though we never did
All the things I should've given/ But I didn't
Oh, darling, make it go/ Make it go away

Give me these moments back/ Give them back to me/ Give me that little kiss
Give me your hand/ I should be crying, but I just can't let it show /
I should be hoping, but I can't stop thinking /Of all the things we should've said
That we never said/ All the things we should've done/ Though we never did
All the things that you needed from me/ All the things that you wanted for me
All the things that I should've given/ But I didn't
Oh, darling, make it go away/ Just make it go away now

Songwriters: Kate Bush
This Woman's Work lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC


" With this Kiss, I Pass The Key..."




The line is actually "With this kiss, I'd pass the key" - I'd as in I would

"Houdini"
by Kate Bush

I wait at the table,
And hold hands with weeping strangers
Wait for you to join the group

The tambourine jingle-jangles
The medium roams and rambles
Not taken in, I break the circle

I want this man
To go away now

With a kiss
I'd pass the key
And feel your tongue
Teasing and receiving.
With your spit
Still on my lip
You hit the water
Him and I in the room
To prove you are with us too

He's using code that only you and I know
This is no trick of his
This is your magic

I'd catch the cues
Watching you
Hoping you'd do something wrong

Everybody thinks you'll never make it
But every time you escape

'Rosabel believe,
Not even eternity
Can hold Houdini!'

"Rosabel, believe!"

Through the glass
I'd watch you breathe
("Not even eternity")
Bound and drowned
And paler than you've ever been
("will hold Houdini!")

With your life
The only thing in my mind
We pull you from the water

You ("Hou-di-ni")
And I and Rosabel believe

Songwriters: Kate Bush
Houdini lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC


With this Kiss, I Pass The Key - A Musical Monday Mix for 1811.26

1. Kate Bush - "This Woman's Work"
2. Kate Bush - "The Dreaming"
3. Kate Bush - "Houdini"
4. Kate Bush "Waking The Witch"
5. Kate Bush - "Jig Of Life"
6. Kate Bush - "Hello Earth"
7. Kate Bush - "Cloudbusting + int + Running Up That Hill" - FANTASTICO 1985
8. This Mortal Coil - "Song To The Siren"
9. Kate Bush - "Hounds of Love"
10 . Anne-Marie - "Do It Right"
11. Mogwai - "Ether"
12. Kate Bush - "Pull Out The Pin"
13. Kate Bush - "The Big Sky"
14. Kate Bush - "Night Of The Swallow"
15. Kate Bush - "Eat The Music"
16. Cocteau Twins - "Carolyn's Fingers"
17. Tori Amos - "Crucify"
18. Kate Bush - "Suspended in Gaffa"
19. Kate Bush - "The Sensual World"

























































VIDEO POD PLAYERS FOR THIS ENTIRE MIX





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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1811.26 _ 10:10

- Days ago = 1241 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.

Sunday, November 25, 2018

A Sense of Doubt blog post #1374 - Will it die if you Starve it? State of the Hate Nation - Nov 2018

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-mad-magazine_us_574dd1e4e4b0757eaeb0c134
A Sense of Doubt blog post #1374 - Will it die if you Starve it? State of the Hate Nation - Nov 2018

Today's post was going to be about the importance of socks with links to where one can buy my favorite socks, which in part is my way of organizing where I can buy my favorite socks in the PDX area because I have so far only found one great sock mecca and it's in Hood River, which is a bit of a drive.

But then, as I always say, material presents itself.

I was not planning to write about politics and the person "elected" to the presidency, and then, the shit show that is the new normal for government crossed the transom of my email, and I felt compelled.

This stuff is just too good to not share it.

After all, this is who we want as Attorney General: "shady business dealings and a history of attacking the values of non-Christian Americans."

As Elvis Costello penned immortally in one of his earliest songs: "I used to be disgusted, but now I try to be amused."

sigh.

And I loved the subject line Move On used: TRUMP IS FREAKING OUT!




From Moveon.org:

We're living through a slow-motion Saturday Night Massacre.

Jeff Sessions recused himself from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, so Donald Trump fired him.
Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was next in line to replace Sessions, but Trump didn't think he'd shut down the Mueller investigation, either.

So, instead, Trump installed as acting attorney general an unqualified lackey named Matt Whitaker, who has already said on CNN how he would go about ending the Mueller investigation—by starving it of funds. Whitaker is well-known in the Justice Department as a "White House spy," who will feed information about the investigation directly to Trump.1 (Let's be clear: Not only is Whitaker a Trump loyalist opposed to the probe, he also has his own record of shady business dealings and a history of attacking the values of non-Christian Americans.)

Congress must act now to protect the rule of law by passing bipartisan legislation to protect the Mueller investigation during the lame-duck session of Congress. And then, when Democrats take over the House in January, they need to begin oversight hearings immediately.

Putting a stooge like Whitaker in charge of the Justice Department is shocking even by Trump standards. Whitaker tweeted out an article referring to the Mueller investigation as a "lynch mob."2 He's linked to a firm that scammed veterans out of their life savings.3 And the Justice Department won't even release his financial disclosure forms.4

But now that Trump has installed his lackey as acting attorney general, the next step is obvious: Trump will either order Whitaker to fire Mueller or simply allow Whitaker to implement his own plan of defunding the Mueller probe.

Either way, the very integrity of our democracy and rule of law are at stake.

That's why the American people are rising up against this grotesque abuse of power. MoveOn has a sharp campaign plan to keep the pressure on, including:
  • A media-grabbing "Guilty Pleas-ures" ice cream truck handing out free ice cream, with flavors like "Cocoa Conspirator" and "IndictMint Chip," and sharing real facts about the impact of the Russia probe. Everywhere it goes, the ice cream truck gets great press, and MoveOn has decided to keep it going (next week, the truck will be right outside the Watergate building in Washington, D.C.).
  • Organizing extended protests in Washington, D.C. and around the country, following up on the more than 1,000 events that MoveOn members pulled off in the days after the Sessions firing. 
  • Flooding Congress with calls to make sure Republicans know that they will be held accountable for Trump's abuses and to remind Democrats that their constituents expect them to fight.
  • Producing a raft of new shareable videos to explain in clear terms that people can understand what's at stake and why Trump's actions are so dangerous.
So much of this resistance is tied to the work that MoveOn members have been fueling for the past two years—and relies on MoveOn's continued investment, leadership, and mobilization.

MoveOn has proven time and again that its tactics are effective, but after a knock-down, drag-out midterm election, MoveOn needs our help to sustain this long-term fight.





Legal experts from both political parties say that Whitaker's appointment is illegal, and Democrats have filed a lawsuit to stop it.5 Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has threatened to add the Mueller protection bill to must-pass spending legislation to prevent a government shutdown.6

The reason that Democrats in Congress are standing strong is because they've heard our voices. Within hours of Trump firing Sessions, MoveOn members organized more than 1,000 rallies all over the country, which were attended by more than 100,000 people.

MoveOn members are ready to hit the streets again—and, in the meantime, have been hitting the phones, protesting at local events, getting TV coverage, and flooding social media every step of the way to defend the investigation and demand real accountability for Trump and the truth about Russia. It's now just as critical that MoveOn help protect Mueller's work, push Democrats in the House to use every tool at their disposal to hold Trump accountable, and force Whitaker to recuse—or, even better, have him removed from his unconstitutionally-appointed position.

We must keep up the pressure. This is perhaps the greatest threat to our democracy and rule of law that we've seen in a generation, and we need to demand that Republicans join Democrats in passing legislation to protect the Mueller investigation during the lame-duck session of Congress, and then make sure that Democrats begin investigations when they take over the House in January.

Thanks for all you do.
–Robert Reich

Sources:

1. "Schumer calls for investigation of Whitaker's contacts with White House," The Hill, November 20, 2018
https://act.moveon.org/go/61289?t=8&akid=220934%2E36207282%2EHu24JJ

2. "What Sessions's Resignation Means for Robert Mueller," The Atlantic, November 7, 2018
https://act.moveon.org/go/61284?t=10&akid=220934%2E36207282%2EHu24JJ

3. "The many scandals of Trump's new acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker, explained," Vox, November 14, 2018
https://act.moveon.org/go/61285?t=12&akid=220934%2E36207282%2EHu24JJ

4. "Failure to turn over Whitaker's public financial disclosure forms angers critics," CNN, November 19, 2018
https://act.moveon.org/go/61286?t=14&akid=220934%2E36207282%2EHu24JJ

5. "Senate Democrats are suing to try to stop Matthew Whitaker from serving as acting attorney general," Vox, November 19, 2018
https://act.moveon.org/go/61287?t=16&akid=220934%2E36207282%2EHu24JJ

6. "Charles Schumer says Democrats might tie spending bill to Mueller protection," USA Today, November 11, 2018
https://act.moveon.org/go/61288?t=18&akid=220934%2E36207282%2EHu24JJ



Contributions to MoveOn.org Civic Action are not tax deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes. This email was sent to Chris Tower on November 25th, 2018






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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1811.25 - 10:10

- Days ago = 1240 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.