Vote NO In The California Recall

You see, sleep or no sleep, hunger or no hunger, tired or not tired, you can always do a thing when you know it must be done.
—     George Bernard Shaw
[If you are of voting age, live in California, and have not already voted by mail, get to your local polling location and vote NO on the California Recall.    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2021	Vote NO In The California Recall
	On And On
2020	The Importance You Can Have
	Slow Dancin’
	Trump Reaffirms His Administration Is The Cause Of West Coast Wildfires
2019	A Lifestyle
	Day 16: Cheat Day
2018	The Children Are Our Future
2017	And Three
2016	Nine Parts Mystery
2015	Little Or No Common Ground
2014	Just Between Me
2013	Beyond The Strings
2012	Saving The Union
2011	Still And Too Often

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More Than Satisfying Hunger

When we sit at the table, there is more going on than satisfying hunger.  It is sad to think of those who eat simply to satisfy their hunger and who do not permit themselves to linger under the many spells offered by a good meal – the satisfaction of our hearts, our minds and our spirits.
—    Dr. Leo F. Buscaglia
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On This Day In:
2021	I Hope To See You Later
	To Do With You
2020	More Than Satisfying Hunger
	End Of Year Thoughts Of Those Gone Before Us
2019	Still Hoping To Soar
2018	Why America Stinks More Than It Did 50 Years Ago
2017	No Universal Thinking
2016	Supervise The Results
2015	Just Magic!
2014	It Lies Ahead…
2013	At Least One Difference
2012	Are We, Are We?
	On Not Playing The Game
	Scale
2011	Nutcracker And Nooks
	Seeing Differences

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A Moment To Rejoice

There is poverty and hunger and war in the world.  And we prepare for more war.  There is desperate suffering with no prospect for relief.  But we would be contributing to the misery and desperation of the world if we failed to rejoice in the sun, the moon and the stars, in the rivers which surround this island on which we live, on the cool breezes of the bay, on what food we have and on the benefactors God sends.
—    Dorothy Day
Appearing in:  “The Catholic Worker”  (newspaper)
Dtd:  July-August 1940
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On This Day In:
2021	In My Unending Story
	Say You Will
2020	A Day With No Sun
	A Beautiful Thing
	A Moment To Rejoice
2019	Where And Why
	Day 12: Pause Or Plateau?
	Eating Later
2018	Here And Hope
2017	Choose
2016	All I Ever Wanted
2015	Compassionate Toward Yourself
2014	All And None
2013	Voices In The Dark
2012	Does Uncommonly Flexible = Flip-Flopping?
2011	A Modest Review Of A Modern Day Classic
	Encouragement Is The Path To Immortality

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Transfiguration

There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.
—    Mahatma Gandhi
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On This Day In:
2021	Fighting New Guitar Fever
	Bad Trades In The Tunnel
2020	Give And Gain
	Can We Talk For A Second
	Almost Ready To Take A Breath
2019	Transfiguration
2018	2018 Mid-Terms
	Praying For A Blue Tsunami Election
2017	Islam Is Not The Enemy
2016	A Checkered Past, A Checkered Future
2015	Preferences
2014	Have You Taken The Pledge?
2013	Nurture Tolerance
2012	Election Day – Please Hear What I’m Not Saying
2011	Mostly Strange, Always Blue
	What Is It You Want?
2010	MSNBC, Bring Back Keith !!!
	Value..
	Worse Still…
	Afraid So…
	Making It
	Don’t Jump Small
	Time
	Push!!
	I’m Still Here… (A Message To Keith Olbermann)
	Choose
	Not Yet…
	Mean Too
	Still Building (and Planning)
	Hangin’ High
	Always…

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Fostering Debate

The freedom of speech is an important democratic value, but it’s not the only one.  In the liberal tradition, free speech is usually understood as a vehicle — a necessary condition for achieving certain other societal ideals:  for creating a knowledgeable public;  for engendering healthy, rational, and informed debate;  for holding powerful people and institutions accountable;  for keeping communities lively and vibrant.  What we are seeing now is that when free speech is treated as an end and not a means, it is all too possible to thwart and distort everything it is supposed to deliver.
Creating a knowledgeable public requires at least some workable signals that distinguish truth from falsehood.  Fostering a healthy, rational, and informed debate in a mass society requires mechanisms that elevate opposing viewpoints, preferably their best versions.  To be clear, no public sphere has ever fully achieved these ideal conditions — but at least they were ideals to fail from.  Today’s engagement algorithms, by contrast, espouse no ideals about a healthy public sphere.
============ The most effective forms of censorship today involve meddling with trust and attention, not muzzling speech. ============
Some scientists predict that within the next few years, the number of children struggling with obesity will surpass the number struggling with hunger.  Why?  When the human condition was marked by hunger and famine, it made perfect sense to crave condensed calories and salt.  Now we live in a food glut environment, and we have few genetic, cultural, or psychological defenses against this novel threat to our health.  Similarly, we have few defenses against these novel and potent threats to the ideals of democratic speech, even as we drown in more speech than ever.
The stakes here are not low.  In the past, it has taken generations for humans to develop political, cultural, and institutional antibodies to the novelty and upheaval of previous information revolutions.  If The Birth of a Nation and Triumph of the Will came out now, they’d flop;  but both debuted when film was still in its infancy, and their innovative use of the medium helped fuel the mass revival of the Ku Klux Klan and the rise of Nazism.
By this point, we’ve already seen enough to recognize that the core business model underlying the Big Tech platforms — harvesting attention with a massive surveillance infrastructure to allow for targeted, mostly automated advertising at very large scale — is far too compatible with authoritarianism, propaganda, misinformation, and polarization.  The institutional antibodies that humanity has developed to protect against censorship and propaganda thus far — laws, journalistic codes of ethics, independent watchdogs, mass education — all evolved for a world in which choking a few gatekeepers and threatening a few individuals was an effective means to block speech.  They are no longer sufficient.
—    Zeynep Tufekci
From her article:  “It’s the (Democracy-Poisoning) Golden Age of Free Speech“
Appearing in:  Wired Magazine;  dtd:  February 2018
On-line at:  https://www.wired.com/story/free-speech-issue-tech-turmoil-new-censorship/
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On This Day In:
2021	It Doesn’t Rain Forever
	Thoughtful Stroll
2020	An Act Of Faith
	Born And Sold Fairy Tales
2019	Fostering Debate
2018	The Births Of Spring
2017	Drug Epidemic In America
2016	Word Up, Chuck!
2015	Sometimes I Wonder About Things
2014	Still Racing
2013	Anew
2012	Make Both
2011	Are You Happy Yet?

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Ghrelin And Leptin

When we follow restrictive diets, count calories, eat according to an arbitrary meal schedule, etc., we disconnect from our satiety hormones.  We eat because it is time to eat.  We eat because food is available.  The more we do it, the worse shape we are in.
Bottom line, if you have had trouble sticking to a diet, it isn’t your fault — it’s your hormones.  The overwhelming drive to eat is coming from ghrelin, telling you to eat more.  You are no longer able to get the signals from leptin, telling you that you have had enough.  Understand that uncontrollable or constant hunger is a sign that your have made some dietary choices that aren’t working for you.  On the other hand, satiety is a good sign, telling you that your body is happy with what you are doing.
—     Gin Stephens
From her book:  “Delay, Don’t Deny“
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On This Day In:
2021	Current Heroes (II)
	Glued To The TV – 3,000 Miles Away
2020	Current Heroes
	I’m Mid-West Born, But California Raised
	Appropriated To Her Being
2019	All In Good Time
	Day 13: Pause & Resume
	Ghrelin And Leptin
2018	Gratitude And Warmth
	Remembering Loss, Sacrifice And Service
	Making Little Ones Out Of Bigger Ones
2017	Never Forget
2016	It’s All Greek To Me (Well, Latin Actually)
2015	Truism
2014	Thank You
2013	Really
2012	Ordinary Five Minutes Longer
2011	The Wealth Of Sons (And Daughters)

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Do You See Him At The Border

There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.
—    Mahatma Gandhi
[Jesus is at our border…
Matthew 25: 42-44
42 For I was hungry and you gave Me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me nothing to drink,
43 I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, I was naked and you did not clothe Me, I was sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’
44 And they too will reply, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’
There are people in the world so desperate for a chance to raise their families in peace, that Heaven cannot appear to them except in the form of the United States.    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2017	Keep Moving Forward
2016	That Which You Restore
	The Best Of Disinfectants
2015	Thousands
2014	What We Can
2013	Mostly Unsound
2012	Malcontent
2011	What Have You Seen Lately?
	Just Perspire!

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