The Spanish invented the modern world and ruled without equal until the English defeated the armada and invented the factory. Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, everyone is entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts. the hitchhikers guide to galaxy: ‘Nobody has figured out how to select leaders, the only thing agreed on is that anybody who wants to be a leader should under no circumstances be allowed any power.’ Nicholas Paternostro Williamsville Paternostro, Nicholas, age 77, of Williamsville, entered into rest on July 8, 2024. Beloved life partner of over 40 years to Charlene Brown; devoted father of Marcia (Bill) Provost, Francine (Marc) Martinez and Nicholas Paternostro; cherished grandfather of Megan, Jessica, Nicholas, Brenna, Caroline and Samuel; adored great-grandfather of 3 great-grandchildren; loving son of the late Nicholas C. and Viola (nee Talarico) Paternostro; dear brother of the late Marcia Ortolano; also survived by... Baby Boomer cohort number one (born 1946–1955), the cohort who epitomized the cultural change of the 1960s Memorable events: the early Cold War (and associated Red Scare); the Cuban Missile Crisis; assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr.; political unrest; the Apollo Program; the War in Vietnam; sexual liberation; drug experimentation; the civil rights movement; environmentalism; the second wave of feminism; and the Woodstock Festival. Baby Boomer cohort number two (born 1956–1964), the cohort who came of age in the "malaise" years of the 1970s Memorable events: the Cold War; the Cuban Missile Crisis; assassinations of political icons; the War in Vietnam; the Moon-landing mission; the Watergate scandal and Richard Nixon's resignation; the lowering of the legal drinking age to 18 in many states from 1970 to 1976 (restored to 21 in the mid-1980s as a result of congressional lobbying by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD)); the 1973 oil crisis; stagflation; President Jimmy Carter's re-imposition of registration for the draft, the Iranian hostage crisis; the election of Ronald Reagan as president; and Live Aid. Narcissism is the egotistical admiration of oneself. Machiavellianism is a duplicitous interpersonal style and disregard for morality. These characteristics are bad enough, but the element of psychopathy adds in an absence of empathy and remorse to complete the Dark Triad: It’s all about me, I am willing to hurt you for my gain, and I don’t care how you feel.Sometimes, a person like this will display a fourth trait to make a Dark Tetrad: sadism, or the enjoyment of others’ suffering. Some scholars have argued, in effect, that all triad types are really tetrads, because narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy are all expressions of a governing tendency toward sadism. The Way We Were Sydney Pollack fav films Casablanca (1943) Citizen Kane (1941) The Conformist (1970) The Godfather Part II (1974) Grand Illusion (1937) The Leopard (1963) Once Upon a Time in America (1984) Raging Bull (1980) The Seventh Seal (1957) Sunset Boulevard (1950) a middle class is not a normal thing, and if a country wants one it must be created by direct government intervention in the marketplace. konk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwluIkaoR0M docenko bros https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVEuW3X3YhQ&t=10s Benten Music Center 292 Summer Street Buffalo, NY 14222 Pavana was founded in 2021 by Suzanne Fatta along with her partner Daniel Yost, and Buffalo musician Roland Hayes. * Suzanne is a Contralto, musicologist and early music specialist who has performed Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music all across Europe and North America. She is also the Founder and Artistic Director of The Women of Vivaldi, one of the few true all-female choirs in the nation. * Daniel Yost, originally from Argentina, is quickly becoming one of the most in-demand luthiers in the country. He specializes in the construction and repair of historical plucked and strummed stringed instruments. He is also a choral director and educator, who enjoys giving workshops on instrument making. * Roland Hayes, a legal aid lawyer by day, is a highly skilled early guitarist who plays theorbo, Renaissance lute, Renaissance guitar, Baroque guitar, archlute, vihuela and more. Daniel and Roland are both members of The Lute Society of America, and Pavana is part of Early Music America. Join us for a sampling of Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music for multiple combinations of voice, harp, and guitars... from England to Spain, from France to Italy; enjoy a mix of early music chestnuts and hidden gems! Roland Lord Wheeler Hayes Emerson 1. Be a private person; never share details of your life with total strangers. 2. Don’t conform to any conventional wisdom; question everything. 3. Make independence your goal; walk alone when necessary. 4. Don’t take the easiest path; choose to do hard things. 5. Get the cultural garbage out of your life; focus only on what edifies you. 6. Change your mind as you see fit; make no apologies for doing so. 7. Commit to complete honesty; this includes honesty with yourself. 8. Do not count on external forces for your happiness; look within. “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.” Amen. If you have an always-on Linux on your network (or Raspbian on Raspberry Pi), you can install a cron job that will automatically update your IP address every 20 minutes. Make sure you have the "curl" command installed, and then execute the following command: (crontab -l;echo "*/21 * * * * curl \"https://freemyip.com/update?token=YOUR_TOKEN&domain=YOUR_DOMAIN.freemyip.com\">/dev/null 2>&1")|crontab - https://freemyip.com/update?token=5fc0c0c883811a23b1283bd4&domain=mdburns.freemyip.com (crontab -l;echo "*/21 * * * * curl \"https://freemyip.com/update?token=5fc0c0c883811a23b1283bd4&domain=mdburns.freemyip.com\">/dev/null 2>&1")|crontab - Intro There are few (no violinists in Buffalo NY) violinists that can truly know, play and improvise all st The Rise of Poverty Inc. How helping the poor became big business By Anne Kim Mystery is the engine of creativity. political social movements happen because of singularly charismatic people who make you feel goosebumps. Today, we talk about moral panics and moral contagions, where a collective of people is captivated by a big idea, and they lose their sense of self, harm, and morality The truth really does matter. We’re entering a period of epistemological murk and uncertainty that we’ve not experienced since the middle ages. In a single stroke, the idea of evolution by natural selection unifies the realm of life, meaning, and purpose with the realm of space and time, cause and effect, mechanism and physical law. synecdoche, wherein a part of something represents the whole or vice versa. They lie constantly, blatantly, obviously. But they don’t bother to offer counterarguments when their lies are exposed … This tactic—the so-called fire hose of falsehoods—ultimately produces not outrage but nihilism. Trump has unleashed his inner psychopath and if he wins this election it’s going to get uglier here in America than most people today can imagine.Trump has set himself up both as a Christ figure persecuted for the sake of his followers and as their avenging angel. From the standpoint of History, there is a famous saying attributed to many that goes along the lines of: “Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.” The problem is that simplistic views of history miss the boat on what we really need to know. History without understanding why is just a list of dates and facts. Understanding these alternatives, that one they exist, and two the reasoning for them being rejected, helps us to form a more complete picture of the past and be able to apply it to our today and future. Perfect love may cast out fear, as the New Testament says, but the converse is also true. As Aldous Huxley wrote, “Fear casts out love. And not only love. Fear also casts out intelligence, casts out goodness, casts out all thought of beauty and truth.” DD214 Gold Star Family Members will receive the program’s benefits when they present a Lifetime Liberty Pass card to employees at staffed parks. Lifetime Liberty Pass applications will be available on the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historical Preservation’s website starting on April 1. Veterans who have a veteran status designation on their New York State DMV ID can present their ID to employees and don’t need to apply for a card. More information about the Lifetime Liberty Pass Program, including excluded marinas and golf courses, can be found on the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historical Preservation’s website. Nearly 1.2 million people have died in the United States from COVID-19. Close to 9 million adults have long COVID. Nearly 300,000 children have lost one or both parents. I don't know how I got over the hill without getting to the top. First you forget names, then you forget faces. Then you forget to pull up your zipper, then .... Oh my goodness, you forgot to pull your zipper down! Q: Which of your five senses tends to diminish as you get older? > A: Charley Weaver: My sense of decency. Try as he will, no man breaks wholly loose From his first love, no matter who she be. Oh, was there ever sailor free to choose, That didn't settle somewhere near the sea? rudyard kipling 1. Rags to Riches (rise) 2. Riches to Rags (fall) 3. Man in a Hole (fall then rise) 4. Icarus (rise then fall) 5. Cinderella (rise then fall then rise) 6. Oedipus (fall then rise then fall) “need for chaos” The Dark Knight: “Some men just want to watch the world burn.” E.L. Doctorow “In those days, this was years for the sputnik thing, it was customary to downgrade the Russians' science. People who know something about those things didn't make that mistake. But at the level of Time magazine the joke was how they copied everything and claimed it for their own. Well, of course the corollary of that is that it's our bomb they have and that means we were betrayed. After the war our whole foreign policy depended on our having the bomb and the Soviets not having it. It was a terrible miscalculation. It militarized the world. And when they got it the only alternative to admitting our bankruptcy of leadership and national vision was to find conspiracies. It was one or the other.” ? E.L. Doctorow, The Book of Daniel Bill Foster: I'm the bad guy? Sergeant Prendergast: Yeah. Bill Foster: How'd that happen? I did everything they told me to.Falling Down(DFENS) nature does not care what you think. “Death destroys a man,” E. M. Forster wrote, but “the idea of Death saves him.” I need a reverse bucket list. My goal for each year of the rest of my life should be to throw out things, obligations, and relationships. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community Paperback – August 7, 2001 by Robert D. Putnam Doomscrolling or doomsurfing is the act of spending an excessive amount of time reading large quantities of negative news online. The frenetic uncertainty of modern life requires new words, such as doomscrolling, to describe the passive, addictive consumption of bad news about a seemingly never-ending supply of calamity. Virtuous goals should not be accomplished by illiberal means. “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People,” he asserts. “It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” John Adams The most basic form of compassion is not assuaging distress but acknowledging it. When we can’t make people feel better, we can still make a difference by making them feel seen. And in my research, I’ve found that being helpful has a secondary benefit: It’s an antidote to feeling helpless. Quantum Fields: The Most Beautiful Theory in Physics! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoStndCzFhg Chevron deference We should brace ourselves for a second uncorking of what Philip Roth called “the indigenous American berserk” William S. Burroughs There are no accidents in the world of magic Confucius: “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves” — one for your enemy and one for yourself. “I and the public know/What all schoolchildren learn,” W.H. Auden wrote. “Those to whom evil is done/Do evil in return.” "Exterminate all the Brutes" All settler colonial projects, including Israel, reach a point when they embrace wholesale slaughter and genocide to eradicate a native population that refuses to capitulate. A key component to the sustenance of the permanent war state was the creation of the All-Volunteer Force. Without conscripts, the burden of fighting wars falls to the poor, the working class, and military families. This All-Volunteer Force allows the children of the middle class, who led the Vietnam anti-war movement, to avoid service. It protects the military from internal revolts, carried out by troops during the Vietnam War, which jeopardized the cohesion of the armed forces. Baldwin reminds us that “deep water and drowning were not the same thing.” The history of the rise of fascism is not only a history of the power and organization of the fascist right; it’s also a story of fragmentation and refusal to make coalition on the antifascist left. It’s very important to pledge to one another that we’re not going to repeat those errors. It doesn’t mean line up and be a good Biden soldier and don’t say what you know. It’s organize and push him and stop the fascist. Naomi Klien Sometimes I miss the good old days when Donald Trump could be shocking. It’s really hard to imagine something he could say now that would throw us for a loop. You probably heard that on Veterans Day he celebrated the men and women who’ve fought for American democracy by promising to “root out” his liberal opponents. Otherwise known as “the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” civilizations are not murdered, but commit suicide. They fail to adapt to a crisis, ensuring their own obliteration. This human inability to foresee — or to watch out for — long-range consequences may be inherent to our kind, shaped by the millions of years when we lived from hand to mouth by hunting and gathering. The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it. Albert Einstein Loper v Raimondo case a quote by C.S. Lewis: “Friendship is unnecessary,” he wrote, “like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” Alex Honnold and John Bachar Dean Potter “You can find alternatives to milk,” he said, “but what will you do without water?" — Income inequality and the role of tax cuts in it. — Worker insecurity and the role of the GOP war on unions. — A climate-change-driven refugee crisis on our Southern Border. — Political bribery by our Predator Class and the corrupt Citizens United decision. — Billionaires and foreign governments buying politicians. — Media consolidation under the control of rightwing billionaire families. — Corporate monopolies. — Racism, homophobia, and misogyny. As much as it pains me to say it (my personal urge toward salvationism is as strong as anybody else’s), nobody is coming to save us. Don’t despair. Moments of crisis are also moments when the possibility of transformation is at its greatest. Guided by the pristine myth, mainstream environmentalists want to preserve as much of the world's land as possible in a putatively intact state. But "intact," if the new research is correct, means "run by human beings for human purposes." Environmentalists dislike this, because it seems to mean that anything goes. In a sense they are correct. Native Americans managed the continent as they saw fit. Modern nations must do the same. If they want to return as much of the landscape as possible to its 1491 state, they will have to find it within themselves to create the world's largest garden. Some of us like to say that the federal government is an insurance company with an army; Trump vows 'retribution' and 'final battle' at a diminished ... “How America Got Mean.” https://publicdomainreview.org/ https://citizenstakeaction.org/supreme-court-decisions/ The passage of time has the capacity to erase human knowledge: Whole languages disappear; explorers lose their feel for crossing the oceans by gazing at the stars. Technology continually reshapes our intellectual capacities. What remains is the fact that we are on this planet to seek knowledge, truth, and beauty—and that we only get so much time to do it. 1. Name your fears and face them. 2. Know your appetites and control them. 3. Be neither a cheapskate nor a spendthrift. 4. Give as generously as you can. 5. Focus more on the transcendent; disregard the trivial. 6. True strength is a controlled temper. 7. Never lie, especially to yourself. 8. Stop struggling for your fair share. 9. Forgive others, and forbear their weaknesses. 10. Define your morality; live up to it, even in private. https://www.theatlantic.com/ How America Got Mean David Brooks “Narcissistic Collapse” https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/09/business/silicon-valley-bank-investors-worry.html “There are two things in life that only exist if you believe in them: God and bank runs,” said Anshu Sharma William Faulkner’s adage “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” SailGP’s F50 sailboat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2zrqzvtWio 1. Favorite Day Original Margarita Mix ($7 for 32 fluid ounces at the time of publication) target from the words of Jesus Christ himself, who said to his followers, “You must be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” the “authoritarian zeitgeist.” This attitude says: The enemy is out to destroy us. The ends justify the means. Savagery is necessary. The only thing we worship is power. J.G. Grissom, 63, Florida ‘They have become unreachable and irrational’ “My wife and I were lifelong moderate Republicans who rarely paid attention to politics. Trump’s tone and tenor changed all of that. Many of our friends and family members supported MAGA extremism, its rhetoric and insurrection. “We avoid contact with them, as they have become unreachable and irrational in their undying devotion to Trump. They have been willing to express racist, homophobic, intolerant, anti-mask, anti-vaccination, irrational viewpoints. We view maintaining and justifying these extremist beliefs as reasons to question their judgment, rational thinking and character. “My wife fled Cuba in 1965, and we are astounded by the number of similar Cuban relatives who are incapable of seeing the similarities between Trump’s rhetoric and Castro’s. It feels disheartening and unsettling to hear people close to you support a man so clearly flawed and willing to overthrow our democracy. It makes you question if you really ever knew them in the first place.” The reliance on advertising by so much of our digital public sphere — Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Twitter — has perniciously fueled tribalization, hate speech and surveillance. Kissinger’s explanation: “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.” the “banalities and noisy obscenities of life,”