Doom, gloom, shut up and smile. Mark Morford

[madokie]

We are not going in circles, we are going upwards. The path is a spiral; we have already climbed many steps. –Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

I do not pretend to understand these furious dichotomies. I do not always grasp the entirety of the spectrum, the violent chasm separating the opposing energies, the darkening of the Great Wheel.

The question screams like a hammer: Are we in a mad footrace toward our imminent and self-inflicted doom? Or are we moving like lightening gods toward a bright and awesome new awareness? Are we stuck somewhere in between, ever pinned like desperate butterflies, squirming against the humming needle of time, as God just laughs and goes out for more specimens? All of the above? Do you have sufficient time, patience, strong cocktails to ponder?

The science is not lying. The science is not making this sh-t up. We have abused, mocked, cheated on the planet so shamelessly, so gracelessly, for so many years, she will never recover. Not in our lifetime, anyway, or your children’s, or theirs. This is nothing but a brutal and irrefutable fact. How tragic it is – and how much we might be able to mitigate the repercussions for a little while longer – are the only factors currently up for debate.

Have you seen the chilling sneak peeks of the new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change? Have you brushed up on what Mother Jones calls “five of the most terrifying statements” in said report, scenarios all headed our way very soon if we don’t change our policies and resource mismanagements dramatically and immediately, neither of which will actually happen because when it comes to energy and supremacy, the money is too goddamn good and no one has the nerve, power or capacity to stand up to the vile triad of Big Oil, Wall Street and Short Term Gain?

The rest: http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2013/08/27/doom-gloom-smile/

[blkmusclmachine]

1. .

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[Berlum]

2. The science is not lying, but the Republicons, Inc. sure as Hell are

[silverweb]

3. K&R.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]One of Morford's best. Something to ponder as I trip off to bed now.

[Dustlawyer]

4. K&R! The air we breath is mainly due to phytoplankton in the ocean. The acidification of the

world's oceans is starting to make the phytoplankton disappear. Will we wake up in time? These oil companies are pure greed, I know, I have been litigating exclusively against BP for their Texas City plant explosion and the Deepwater Horizon since 2005! They have killed more than our most prolific mass murderor just in the last 10 years. They do not care and they know they are above the law in this country. That is b/c they are owners of our politicians, judges, and their buddies own the media.
We desperately need publicly funded elections to take control of our government back! The only way to save and preserve our environment is to wrest control of Washington back from the corporations.

[tinrobot]

5. I assume people here generally don't deny it is happening...

...but how many are actually doing something? Not just recycling trash and using fluorescent bulbs, but making serious hard core radical lifestyle changes?

It's great to cast blame on conservatives and corporations and governments for causing this mess, but if you burn oil, over consume, and otherwise live like everyone else, you're participating.

I'm not trying to cast aspersions, because I'm no saint either. I do what I can, but it is hardly enough. The problem strikes at the core of our society and how it is constructed, which is why we keep going down this path.

[Civilization2]

6. Great uplifting essay! Thanks for posting it,. it is a must read!

"We have ample evidence and reason to be dismayed. It is easy to wallow and sink, to think that no matter how much good is in the world, no matter the visionaries and the positive deeds, we are but a dark blip in the grand cycle of the galaxy, a fantastically failed experiment, and the Earth is soon to shake us off like fleas.

But oh, the beauty! The grace! The shock of the new thinking, and the increasingly widespread spiritual awakening! This is the dichotomy, the insane push-pull that can make you crazy. Humanity’s display of imagination and creativity is reaching new and astonishing heights, depths, hearts."

<spoiler ALERT! -last line of the essay>

"The ultimate question arises: Which do you prefer? Do you think you have a choice? This is the great and oft-hidden truth: You always have a choice. Perhaps this is what the wise ones have winked at us for millennia: your choice actually makes all the difference."

[malaise]

7. K & R

for truth

[polynomial]

8. Its never too late to learn

These past days listening to the radio news about the civil war in Syria, listening to the electromagnetic journalist all suggesting what another person is really saying. Here in Chicago for decades WGN and ABC radio have with intentional deceit that misinforms locals in an endless parade of lies.

My cable and satellite has been disconnected so my only real news is from the internet, or listening to both the so called liberal or conservative free air radio stations. It is posts like this from madokie that drive a point, and finally a touch of deep lamentation or inspiration give that morning free time to think about how we the people ascend in life.

Being able to write something sensible that transcends to touch or even gets close to the divine nature of man is fun from my view. With new time on the edge of retirement I find myself being able to self-school to learn more. In particular going back to basic science, enjoying the open courseware offered by so many universities world-wide. I have a fetish about Fourier and Matrix math, its used on drown technology.

Even the newer movies, given the Hollywood drama or spirit deliver more and more into the sciences. Actually teaching, the slow change to making a once boring anthropology into an action packed Indiana Jones. Or the very moving series '24' with Kiefer Southerland shows the electronic Internet Technology as the basic tool in crime and secret agents. Both very scary if in the wrong hands.

Discovering that a deep understanding of mathematics is a key player in reasoning for decisions to almost anything man does. That motives me to review and study some math as in calculus videos. Lectures by a professor Chris Tisdell, Sydney Australia is interesting.

The lecture was extremely informative in finding out one of the most important building blocks of the calculus is Green’s theorem but this person only had a fourth grade education before he went to college at forty years old. That really jumped out at me.

That must have been an incredible time in mathematics development. That was not taught or even mentioned during my formal mathematic lectures. Far too many lectures in college are done by recent master’s degree graduates that fall far short in being able to explain a subject. But in those times home school was dominant.

Modokie displays the military symbol that distinguishes one as a Vietnam veteran. Anyway, men who serve in the military, in a war, somewhere in the world develop a consciousness that can never be learned by reading a book. Just as a person lives through a time while reflecting on news organizations that try to educate and inform all the while with the deepest intentions, and because of the internet the massive connection to many opinions, in the minds, of the resources we find we have been deceived with intention to be manipulated.

A really, really tough hurtle to get over because it is controlled by the one percent.