Timothy Taubes

The US homeland will not come out of the war with Iran unscathed. Especially with Markwayne and Kash in charge.

I'm in central CT. A month ago my local gas station was at $2.79.

Today it's $3.29.

I'm in central CT. A month ago my local station was at $2.79.

Today it's $3.29.

YouTube video by The Beatles - Topic You Won't See Me (Remastered 2009)

#EmojiSounds
#MusicChallenge
6) 🙈

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsjT...

We know it from books, movies, television, video, and song. The self-mystification induced by a market driven myth masquerading as a dream; Americans are the good guys, Americans are always right, Americans always win. [2018]

Their penalty doesn’t come in the form of condemnation or incarceration. It comes as an unspoken abject humiliation. They are made to feel that somehow, they have let us down. Defeat betrays everything that we have taught ourselves to believe about ourselves.

The common foot soldier is not responsible for the good or bad decisions of their superiors. They have a job to do and they are cheered on to victory. When they win, their superiors are too quick to take the credit. When they lose, the soldier shoulders the blame.

When the Germans invaded Belgium in World War I, the atrocities were telegraphed across the world. When the Russians swept through Nazi occupied Europe in World War II, their atrocities made Belgium pale in comparison. Do brutal war crimes somehow equal out in the end? A gruesome logic.

This does not excuse untoward behavior by the soldier while in battle. There is a natural animosity that develops between adversaries, and emotions operate on the brink of mortal combat. Sometimes it’s a matter of settling old scores, at other times senseless rapine.

“War is hell,” to quote a well-known American general. It can bring out both the best and the worst on the battlefield and there will always be the perpetration of atrocious acts. It can be aroused by seeing one’s comrades-in-arms slaughtered before one’s eyes.

The controversial second amendment of the US Constitution, drafted that same year, was a concession to the anti-federalists, for whom Shays rebellion was a living reality.

Years after the revolution, these unpaid soldiers were taxed by the federal government. The taxes were used to pay off wealthy merchants who had contributed to the war effort. This gave rise to Shays Rebellion, a bloody confrontation in 1787, eventually suppressed by state militia.

Soldiers from the American Revolution, though heroes of a successful campaign, were not always treated as such. Many patriots were never paid for their services, among them Daniel Shays.

There is a malingering and undeserved conception of the Vietnam veteran as medicated and psychotic, an image ironically disseminated in anti-war movies like, Full Metal Jacket, The Deer Hunter, Platoon, and internalized by American popular culture.

The American Vietnam veteran returned from an unpopular war. They took the brunt for a losing and morally objectionable effort. They were called baby killers.

It was the Russians blundering into incompetent defeat. The Bolsheviks, who emerged as the rulers of a new Russia, disparaged the Russian victims as fodder expended by the corrupt Imperial system.

However, those who die for a losing cause are not treated as kindly, either by contemporaries or posterity. During the first week of World War One, Russia lost an entire army of over 100,000 men. It was not the Germans conducting a brilliant victory.

The Samurai are still venerated in Japan. When we, “Remember Pearl Harbor,” we are remembering those who fell on that December day, and, “the greatest generation,” who would follow them into war.

The respect for sacrifice on the battlefield has grown to mythological proportions. We honor those who died in combat and their exploits become a part of our cultural heritage. The tradition began in antiquity. Sparta remains legendary for the skill, courage, and training of its warriors.

Those in power will make political decisions that make little or no military sense. Regardless of the circumstances, when soldiers die in defense of their country, they are rightfully promoted to the rank of hero.

Tribute to a Soldier
There is no greater honor than to serve in the defense of one’s country. The soldier going into combat does so under the assumption that those who are sending them into harm’s way are doing it for the right reason.

YouTube video by FrankZappaVEVO Frank Zappa, The Mothers Of Invention - Fifty-Fifty (Visualizer)

#MusicChallenge
#DavidsMonthOfMusic

DAY 6- A SONG BY A BAND/ARTIST WHOSE NAME STARTS WITH F.

Frank Zappa - Fifty-Fifty artist and song

Amazing consecutive solos by
George Duke/keyboards
Jean-Luc Ponty/violin
Frank Zappa/guitar

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCl9...

YouTube video by SteveVaiHimself Steve Vai - Teeth of the Hydra (Official Music Video)

#BreakingKindSongs
#MusicChallenge
#MusicSky
March 5️⃣ - Mentions anything from Greek or Roman mythology.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=46qj...

@breakingkind.bsky.social

The bridge between the potential and the actual necessitates the same metaphysical lurch of faith as that required for the spirit and the flesh. The actuality of conception, or a heartbeat, can never verify the potentiality of the eternal spirit.

They are mental constructions and their verification are not based on physical evidence but on the equivocal ideas of religion and psychology. Biological determinants cannot substantiate the presence of the soul.

When the viable biology is present, must the presence of the spirit be assumed? This is another example of the paradox of incarnation. The self, spirit, or soul exist in the non-biological realm.

By laying the answer at god’s doorstep, all these questions can be set aside. The argument then rests on an unprovable assumption; the incarnation, spirit become flesh. Kierkegaard called it the paradox that necessitated faith. The metaphysical lurch.

Potentiality itself is an ambiguous term. If something is deserving the rank of potential, must it be able to achieve a state of actuality, or can it remain in a state of perpetual potentiality? If potential goes unrealized, has it become the impossible?