Author: Jonathan Mitchell

where he appeared to pledge allegiance to Russian President Vladimir Putin over US intelligence agencies, prompting some Americans to label Trump a traitor.
— Read on www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/names/2018/07/18/dershowitz-concedes-maybe-didn-realize-enough-how-emotionally-people-are-invested-opposing-trump/qNTEmIIHLvVSxUInvqyKyK/story.html

He didn’t get that the group he identifies with is as capable of foaming-at-the-mouth stupidity as the groups on the right he used to defend Communists against. Take this line from the article: ‘where he appeared to pledge allegiance to Russian President Vladimir Putin over US intelligence agencies, prompting some Americans to label Trump a traitor.’ It’s striking: they have no trouble portraying the President of the United States as pledging allegiance to another country. Why? Because they want to believe Trump works for Putin. Because that utterly irrational idea has taken hold over many traditional liberals. They’ve gone nuts.

I toss around the phrase ‘higher orders’ as though it has a specified meaning. It does not. I mean ‘orderings’ for orders and ‘higher’ means distance away in layers of countable orderings, so the idea of a ‘higher order’ is a layer that relates in a specific way to another order so one may be considered included within the other. An example is the physical world and universe and abstracted versions and descriptions of it. I typically mean more specifically higher order abstract versions and descriptions of physical reality that resolve according to specific, entirely rational rules so the relation is both direct and extraordinarily complex.

I’ve long known the ‘model’ that works but it’s extremely complicated and it took great effort – and the single greatest incentive I think ever seen on earth – to put it together so it describes both the extremely microscopic and the extremely macroscopic. I put ‘model’ in quotes because the word isn’t truly correct: it’s actuality expressed using ideas and images that model the actuality to a degree and in a form that unites all the levels. If I start talking about that here, I’ll use up 10 pages.

I ‘almost’ laughed typing the word ‘unites’ because one of the fundamental premises is that there is a limit to ‘unites’: we can’t have a universal set, can’t have completeness, and can’t otherwise make all one. I like to think of that as ‘daddy and mommy can love you but you still have to be you’. The ‘almost’ comes from two points. First, that this model is the literal embodiment of infinite relative existences. And second, that this connects directly to my over-powering sense of mission: that the essence of relative existence from the highest to the lowest order levels renders as directionality, by which I mean the actual definitions of positive and negative directionality relative to both the included and any including potential. It is kind of funny that the ultimate statement sort of becomes ‘what good are you?’, because ‘good’ becomes directional and ‘what one becomes’ has the same general meaning as we each intend in life.

Ripeness is all, meaning the process by which a seed becomes a tree becomes fruit which you or animals eat to survive and thrive. There are many ways to express the basic notion that metal shaped into a hammer is better for pounding nails than the lack of a hammer, and that you use nails for a reason, meaning there is always some reason and it’s better to become something so you may be of use than to become nothing.

I need to get back to work, but first: I consider my purpose on earth to be part of an attempt to align this lower order instance of physical existence to the directionality of the higher orders. I consider myself as being here because this project describes best as the outcome of an attempt to understand and explain the higher order concepts of directionality in a world in which directionality is chaotic, by which I mean there is sufficient awareness to credit the concept of ‘intention’ and yet the dominant characteristic is misdirection large and small, and where directionality is extremely hard to maintain. I’m trying to create greater persistence of positive directionality. The entirety of my work for a long time has been to rise to the level I see in the potential partner I need to accomplish this work.

It sounds absurd to say ‘project’ but I actually mean an actual projection of actual higher orders to here because my work makes absolutely clear that this is not only exactly possible but that it is in fact a real projection because it is possible. I have more trouble believing I’m doing this than anyone who may ever read this can know. But I have to accept the work. I no longer ‘believe’ it’s correct: it is definitely correct because I’ve applied it across the scales and across the ideas. Last point for now: I don’t mean the higher order projection ‘wins’ but rather that it’s attempting to reach here to improve this place and it’s existence as it stretches into higher orderings. That’s why I’ve never given up: the stakes extend far beyond my physical existence.

Amid discussion about whether Apu is an Indian stereotype, Mr. Groening shares his feelings about the character and explains why the criticism caught him off guard.
— Read on www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/arts/television/simpsons-matt-groening-apu.html

I’ve posted about this before but The Simpsons makes fun of a variety of ethnic and racial and religious types. The most offensive is probably Krusty, who is a rapacious asshole of a Jew who dresses as a clown but is full of hatred and self-loathing. Jews don’t complain about that. I think most Jews find it funny. The basic characters are Protestant Americans portrayed as dumb-asses and weasels with low intelligence and iffy morals. I could go on. Apu may be the least offensive character on the show. My feeling: criticizing The Simpsons got publicity.

To demand that only transgender actors be cast in transgender roles is to deny the legitimacy of acting as a profession.
— Read on www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2018/07/18/you-don-have-transgender-man-play-one-movies/SXQtQ1Y3XPwYYsspP2pomI/story.html

I tend to agree with this. I read a piece by a trans person who felt it’s important for the trans community that trans people play this kind of part because they aren’t accepted, but I think that misses the point, which is that a portrayal by a well known actress like Scarlett would cause people to view trans people with the same ‘like’ they have for Scarlett, so it would actually advance their acceptance more. As Jeff notes, it now looks like the movie won’t be made so the story won’t get out and the trans community won’t be portrayed.

Members of Amish and Mennonite communities across the US have been flocking to Sarasota, Florida to vacation for nearly 100 years – relaxing some rules as they enjoy socializing and games
— Read on www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5964067/The-coastal-Florida-getaway-Amish-Mennonites-vacationing-nearly-century.html

Mostly Mennonites. Used to see lots of them around Sarasota. There were, probably still are, some restaurants with Pennsylvania Dutch style cooking – which is essentially what we think of ‘family restaurant’ fare – and lots of pies, most of which I found too sweet but then I don’t have a big sweet tooth.

Massachusetts recently issued its first recreational marijuana license, bringing pot more fully into the ranks of regulated substances. Bravo! Decriminalizing drugs is a tactic that has been demonstrated to reduce their harm, notably in Portugal.
— Read on www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2018/07/18/alcohol-legal-drug-should-worried-about-not-marijuana/WzHGoSzA3tNIplGHoGBWkN/story.html

He cites the UK lowering its alcohol recommendation. Problem: the UK drinks more. In fact, the US seems to be the lowest drinking country in the industrialized world, with the highest number of abstainers and the highest number of light/occasional drinkers. So … I see no evidence that lowering recommendations in a drinking country matters, and think that rather than being a sign of ‘good’ choices, it actually reflects a larger problem.

With two weeks remaining of formal legislative sessions for the year, time has apparently run out on efforts to reach a compromise that would limit noncompete agreements in the state.
— Read on www.bostonglobe.com/business/2018/07/17/legislative-session-comes-close-without-action-noncompete-reforms/kUkGAUgfilttAuTL0NG0kO/story.html

Single thing holding back MA versus CA is that non-competes are legal in MA and not in CA. This means that all the bright kids have to leave MA to switch jobs. I tried to argue this many years ago, and particularly that if the state increased its retention rate of those kids, they’d start companies and that would mean more investment capital, etc. But there’s a strong ‘dumb’ streak in MA. It’s the same ‘dumb’ streak that stretches back into history, the one that made Boston unfriendly to immigrants – there were handfuls of immigrants before the Irish famine and then only handfuls of immigrants other than the Irish into the 20thC. It’s the same ‘dumb’ that allowed Boston’s economy to stagnate for about 100 years.

NBC Boston’s Natasha Verma is in remission now, and she’s ready to get back on air and give back to those in need.. Read on Boston.com.
— Read on www.boston.com/culture/media/2018/01/19/local-news-anchor-23-says-cancer-was-the-best-thing-that-ever-happened-to-me

I don’t watch much news, but I notice really attractive women on TV. So I typed ‘NBC10 Natasha’ and found she graduated U of Texas at 17 as a double major and also has a masters in journalism. She has a foundation to provide caps with wigs for cancer patients. Surprised to read this given I saw her doing a traffic report.

I left out my genuine worry: that the extreme negative waves will pull me under. They hit extremely hard, and go all the way to the core. It takes all I have to make it through. And this even though I’ve been all the way to the other side, to the level of the highest betrayal, the one that subsumes all others. I wrote a poem about it, called as I remember ‘Our Lost Girl’, which I haven’t had the nerve to post because it’s about the entire act of creation being an intentional betrayal not at my human level, not any level in between, but of the highest orders that organize our existences across the dimensions. It’s the crumbling of the universe. I don’t know if I’ve shared this with anyone, except in my journal, but I saw clearly what was at stake and, literally, as I drove into the parking garage below my gym I popped back into this reality and the voice inside me, the voice I associate with her, actually screamed at me, ‘Where have you been??!!!’ in a tone of utter panic I’ve never heard from her before. I don’t think I’ve ever been completely beyond observation before. In case you’re wondering, there is no ‘dark side’: it’s the absence of all that’s good to a depth you can’t imagine, an emptiness beyond a vacuum because it disembowels all potential from the lowest to the highest orders of counting existence.

I sometimes feel like I’m on a tight leash. I often feel like I’m being moved around and directed. That’s the story of my life. I have no choice about it. I have no choice in general: I know that even if a supermodel offered herself to me unreservedly I’d say no. Or rather, I’m betting all I have that I wouldn’t even feel like I had the choice. Then I’d kick myself for being me, as I have so many times, but I know I had no choice. It isn’t even that I’d know; it’s that she’d know because she’s in my head.

So I worry. I worry about how awful I am at what I do. I worry about how, even though I’ve figured out vast quantities of things never understood before, that I’ll probably fail at the next thing. Or the thing after. Or the thing after. And I’ll never be good enough. So I worry that one of these times that dagger to my heart will penetrate and I won’t be able to fight through to the positive side.

I can’t play at the brink of destruction any longer. It was probably a stupid ‘choice’ to make, but one of the very first religious ideas I worked through was the obvious concept that humans need to be pushed to the edge of the abyss before they can learn. Example: we think of Noah and the animals, but we don’t think that in the story Noah and his family are the only survivors, that everyone else needed to be killed. Or that Abraham couldn’t have a child into old age and then he hears a voice say, ‘kill him’. Or that Joseph and Benjamin are Rebecca’s only children so losing both would be a huge blow to Jacob, taking from him the only remnants of his beloved. And so on and on and across traditions.

Thinking a bit more as I try to distract myself. I forgot to say that it comes down to the level at which the story is told and why it is being told. When I went to the other side, I saw that there is no ‘there’ there, that it’s the reading of a story ‘above’ the highest order that can exist, which means that it can’t exist in these orders, and that as a manifestation of essential incompleteness it’s actually the negation, as I said, of all the potential contained in the universe phrased in ‘language’ or story imagery that becomes understandable. I’m a happy ending guy.

The Freedom from Facebook coalition showcased signs portraying two top Jewish Facebook officials as an octopus with its tentacles across a globe.
— Read on freebeacon.com/issues/anti-facebook-group-takes-anti-semitic-signs-to-congress/

Claiming that you’re ignorant of the most visible anti-Semitic propaganda is not credible.