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m_d_h30 minutes is a long time to sit still doing nothing, by today's Internet Age standards. This morning I've awarded myself a virtual bronze medal for consistently incrementing my EFD zazen. I'll try to keep going until I hit 60 minutes. I'm still in the first round of potentially three rounds, with a perfect score after 26 days.
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Why are there 60 minutes in an hour? 60 seconds in a minute? Supposedly this base-60 or sexagesimal numeral system derives from the 3rd Millennium BC and ancient Sumerian culture. Ancient Egyptian culture divided the solar day into 24 equal hours. So, take the amount of time required for the Earth to spin all the way round, divide that into 24 hours, divide each hour into 60 minutes, each minute into 60 seconds. Thank you, long-dead Sumerians and Egyptians from the Age before Christ, for designing this system for tracking our solar days.
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30 minutes = 1/48 of a solar day. I've got the other 47/48ths to let my Frog Brain hop hop hop without restraint.
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I was trying to talk with T yesterday evening about how partisanship keeps getting worse in the US. He proceeded to blame it on the Republicans, which sounded like just more partisanship to me. I'm seeing and hearing people talk about a Second US Civil War. How quickly our supposed Superpower status could collapse because we've dividing into two warring camps who cannot agree about anything.
The US has by far the most aggregate wealth of any country, about 30% of the world's total wealth. Are the billionaires really going to let us destroy all that wealth by turning the US into Syria?
I dunno ... the rich men of Europe destroyed a lot of wealth by fighting WW1, and then the rich men of Asia joined them for WW2. What's wealth for if you can't use it to finance a war against your rivals?
I'm not going to fight a war for either side. I'm not going to buy a gun. If people want to shoot each other I'll do my best to get out of their way.
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Instead of giving more money to my favorite partisan campaigns, is there some sort of NGO that brings Democrats and Republicans together to de-escalate tensions?
Well, there's one called Unite America. I'll try joining them. I may be a Green Communist, but I don't hate people who aren't, and I don't think we should start shooting each other over our political affiliations. We are lucky to live in a democratic republic, compared to the typical human throughout history. Our Constitution isn't perfect, with its outmoded Electoral College and malapportioned Senate, but we've amended it over the years to be much better than it was -- we could continue amending it to make it even better.
But Congress hasn't proposed a new Amendment to the States in nearly 50 years. We haven't had such a long dry spell since before the Civil War. Think about how much has changed in our society during the past 50 years, and we haven't changed the Constitution by even one word during this period?
Leading to the Civil War, the Constitution had a dry spell of 57 years. Immediately after the Civil War, we amended it three times in five years, to abolish slavery and extend equal rights.
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If we did fight a Second Civil War today, what would we even be fighting over? The Republican Party currently has no platform, no statement of their collective beliefs. What would they be fighting for? For Trump? It would be a strange Civil War to be fighting over the person of the President and not anything he stood for. Sounds like the definition of a Cult of Personality. Killing each other over whether to build a Southern Wall? Sigh.
And similarly on the Left, it feels like the only unifying position on the Left is hating Trump.
Sure, we could fight a war over whether we love or hate Trump. I'd rather he dropped dead from a natural heart attack to save us the trouble of fighting a war over him.
How about we set up a big arena and let anybody who wants to shoot people into the arena so they can shoot each other. They can wear red shirts or blue shirts. The side who kills more of the other side wins. I'm not sure what they win, but maybe all they need to do is win. If they win, then they can go home and go back to watching Fox News and MSNBC, back to sharing fake news on Facebook and Twitter, satisfied with having won. Make Shooting Each Other Great Again.
If I could assign a book to everybody right now, it would be The Red Badge of Courage. It's free to read at the link.
-----
Why are there 60 minutes in an hour? 60 seconds in a minute? Supposedly this base-60 or sexagesimal numeral system derives from the 3rd Millennium BC and ancient Sumerian culture. Ancient Egyptian culture divided the solar day into 24 equal hours. So, take the amount of time required for the Earth to spin all the way round, divide that into 24 hours, divide each hour into 60 minutes, each minute into 60 seconds. Thank you, long-dead Sumerians and Egyptians from the Age before Christ, for designing this system for tracking our solar days.
-----
30 minutes = 1/48 of a solar day. I've got the other 47/48ths to let my Frog Brain hop hop hop without restraint.
-----
I was trying to talk with T yesterday evening about how partisanship keeps getting worse in the US. He proceeded to blame it on the Republicans, which sounded like just more partisanship to me. I'm seeing and hearing people talk about a Second US Civil War. How quickly our supposed Superpower status could collapse because we've dividing into two warring camps who cannot agree about anything.
The US has by far the most aggregate wealth of any country, about 30% of the world's total wealth. Are the billionaires really going to let us destroy all that wealth by turning the US into Syria?
I dunno ... the rich men of Europe destroyed a lot of wealth by fighting WW1, and then the rich men of Asia joined them for WW2. What's wealth for if you can't use it to finance a war against your rivals?
I'm not going to fight a war for either side. I'm not going to buy a gun. If people want to shoot each other I'll do my best to get out of their way.
-----
Instead of giving more money to my favorite partisan campaigns, is there some sort of NGO that brings Democrats and Republicans together to de-escalate tensions?
Well, there's one called Unite America. I'll try joining them. I may be a Green Communist, but I don't hate people who aren't, and I don't think we should start shooting each other over our political affiliations. We are lucky to live in a democratic republic, compared to the typical human throughout history. Our Constitution isn't perfect, with its outmoded Electoral College and malapportioned Senate, but we've amended it over the years to be much better than it was -- we could continue amending it to make it even better.
But Congress hasn't proposed a new Amendment to the States in nearly 50 years. We haven't had such a long dry spell since before the Civil War. Think about how much has changed in our society during the past 50 years, and we haven't changed the Constitution by even one word during this period?
Leading to the Civil War, the Constitution had a dry spell of 57 years. Immediately after the Civil War, we amended it three times in five years, to abolish slavery and extend equal rights.
-----
If we did fight a Second Civil War today, what would we even be fighting over? The Republican Party currently has no platform, no statement of their collective beliefs. What would they be fighting for? For Trump? It would be a strange Civil War to be fighting over the person of the President and not anything he stood for. Sounds like the definition of a Cult of Personality. Killing each other over whether to build a Southern Wall? Sigh.
And similarly on the Left, it feels like the only unifying position on the Left is hating Trump.
Sure, we could fight a war over whether we love or hate Trump. I'd rather he dropped dead from a natural heart attack to save us the trouble of fighting a war over him.
How about we set up a big arena and let anybody who wants to shoot people into the arena so they can shoot each other. They can wear red shirts or blue shirts. The side who kills more of the other side wins. I'm not sure what they win, but maybe all they need to do is win. If they win, then they can go home and go back to watching Fox News and MSNBC, back to sharing fake news on Facebook and Twitter, satisfied with having won. Make Shooting Each Other Great Again.
If I could assign a book to everybody right now, it would be The Red Badge of Courage. It's free to read at the link.