Open Thread

Pretty quiet. Anyone want to discuss this interesting thread?

https://kolektiva.social/@LeftistLawyer/114802508191298390

Did you read the Atlantic article? Click through the links therein?

The following link was embedded in the article: https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/ppi16.pdf

The stats don’t support your conclusion, as anyone who actually read the article would understand.

Alan Sutton: “I think it was Confucius that made the obvious point that the more laws are made, the more criminals there will be…”

Not Confucius, but Laozi, the father of Taoism. Chapter 57 of the Tao Te Ching:

Rule the country with uprightness,
Use strategy and surprise in warfare,
Take the world with non-interference.
How do I know this is so? Be observing:
The more prohibitions there are, the poorer the people become.
The more weapons there are, the more disordered the country becomes.
The more crafty men there are, the more unnatural things happen.*
The more laws are made, the more criminals there will be.

*In the contemporary sense, you can think of it as “the more lawyers there are, the more unethical things happen.”

When Westerners refer to the “Way of Tao” or simply “the Tao,” they are referencing “Tao Te Ching” by Laozi. However, “Way of Tao” is an incomplete and somewhat misleading translation of the title “Tao Te Ching”.

“Tao” means the Way, the Principle, the cosmic order, the natural law, the universal principle.

“Te” means Virtue, but it is more like innate or natural goodness, not one that is prescribed by external factors or pressures like laws. There is no direct translation in English. If you know Dungeons and Dragons, “te” is “chaotic good” instead of “lawful good”.

Together, “Tao Te” means ethnics or morality.

“Ching” means scripture, like a collection of mantras that’s to be repeatedly recited and memorized. However, Chinese is fundamentally a secular and philosophical culture, not a religious culture. So, “Ching” is more like philosophical scripture that outlines personal codes and conducts.

– – – – –

Taoism teaches “Tao Te”, i.e., let the universe guides you, let your innate chaotic goodness express itself. It is “chaotic good”.

Confucianism teaches other types of morals and virtues like ren (benevolence/humanness), yu (righteousness), li (propriety/respect), xiao (filial piety), etc., which is a more structured set of morals and virtues than Taoism. Confucianism is “lawful good”.

Buddhism is the other foundational pillar of Chinese culture. Buddhism is all about compassion and universal benevolence (which is different from the Confucian benevolence that is more selective and layered.) Buddhism is “neutral good”—doing good for its own sake, beyond laws or instinct.

Legalism is yet another foundational pillar of Chinese culture, which is just “lawful neutral”: Control, governance, and order above all—with no room or exception for compassion or humanity. Its founder was Han Feizi.

Western perspectives often emphasize Confucianism as the primary foundation of Chinese culture, but in reality, Taoism and Legalism have been equally, if not more, influential, especially in political governance and cultural attitudes toward authority (Legalism) and natural order (Taoism).

– – – – –

That’s why Chinese have 101+ different characters and words for different types of ethnics, morals and virtues, from all those different philosophies, to cover and differentiate subtle aspects and shades of ethnics, morals and virtues.

And now Christianity (the fastest growing faith in China) wants to have an influence and say in Chinese culture as well; which, frankly, I do NOT like or welcome. IMO, the morality of Judea-Christian faiths—Judaism, Christianity and Islam—is really all about submission to the “One and Only God”, exclusivity, and intolerance of other gods, of other faiths—and therefore, of other beliefs and true pluralism. Abrahamic faiths are actually less open to coexistence of other faiths and philosophies.

What do you call the 40 or more young girls camping adjacent to the Guadalupe river who were swept away in the flash flood? That’s right, according to Musk and Trump and MAGA in fact, they were an appropriate sacrifice offered to the elimination of “waste, fraud and abuse”. Moloch is pleased and wants much more where that came from and much more Moloch will get.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhD5Z4F0r6A

A woman who happens to be a black activist in Houston Texas has gotten in hot water for mentioning the fact that the poor young girls missing from the camp in Texas were attending an all white, elite camp, where Laura Bush was a counselor. She mentioned the juxtaposition of the parents of those unfortunates putting people of color in concentration camps. She alluded to the phenomenon of missing white woman’s syndrome. Lot to unpack. .

Home and garden report .

As outdoor temperatures wander around just over and under 90 degrees, my indoor temperature wanders in a narrow band between 75 and 77 degrees. Coming forecast cooler nights might let my indoor temperature begin dropping to 72-73.

A few corn plants are growing but corn has basically failed so far. I am watching and thinking about how and why. Potato plants are growing pretty well. The garlic I planted last pre-winter is growing and the scapes are straightening into stalks. Because I read in “Growing Great Garlic” by Ron Engeland that some experiments with letting the stalks stay on the garlic seem to encourage better toughening-up of the bulbs and longer storage viability, I am leaving all the stalks on. I will cut most of each head off leaving just a little bit behind to keep hormonally influencing the bulb toughening up. Maybe the lack of a whole head to send energy into will allow more energy to go into bigger-than-otherwise bulbs.

I let some of my self-resowing reddigh amaranth plants grow, cut the tops off and cook and eat the leaves. A pretty good green. And the remaining plant will keep regrowing branches and leaves for another couple of harvests. After which i will let them set seed for another round of self-sowing volunteer amaranth greens next year.

Always glad to read to read different clue’s garden report. The phrase 4th of July corn high popped into my mind this morning prompting thoughts of extreme weather events and the massive repercussions derived therefrom.

Prior to reading the open thread comments which I appreciate one and all, I thought to violate our host’s injunction saying no comments on previous topics and say that this BBB bill is classic adolescent language that march steps with transhumance bs and let’s relocate to mars or some New Zealand bunker or converted grain or missiles silos in ND or wherever.

I read a book store full of sci-fi and comic books as a kid and in my youth but saw it as the fantasy world that it is. The mastubatory creeps that rule believe that shit.

I believe in magic and an open road and open questions. . . the bbb bs not so much

Thanks different clue. Seems like if a good thing can go wrong it will. I’ve seen everything from the Farm to Arcosanti and macrobiotics go way down south into never never land.
Still we need to carry positive aspirations and good intentions forward towards fruition.

However, I returned to this forum to talk about dead rabbits. Don’t remember what I posted on the subject here before, but here I go again as I have no distractions outside my own deluded mind and nothing better to do.

On a forsaken plateau in a rural Mediterranean Spanish countryside every Sunday those locals who could afford the privilege would set up hunting blinds to kill rabbits. (It cost $1k for a license.)

Knowing nothing about the custom when I first took up domicile in that isolated landscape and heard all the pow pow pow, I thought the Spanish civil war was happening again.

Later came a knock on the door, which I opened with some trepidation. There stood a hunter holding a dead rabbit upside down by its hind legs. He sheepishly offered it as a welcome wagon gift to the neighborhood.
I accepted it with whatever grace I could muster and then thought what the fuck.

I took the rabbit outside, skinned and gutted it. Then brought it inside and trussed it with twine and hung it on a nail to let it bleed out.

I later quartered it and marinated it in red wine with juniper berries, thyme and sage. Then I slow cooked it in a Dutch oven.

While there’s more to the story, that’s enough for now.

Gotta start my own blog someday rather than glomming on to others. Thanks for sharing your platform Ian. Apologies to your readership.

Here is a post from reddit titled: ” A world map found in the lobby of a Chinese hotel ”

Here is the link.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1lvgcrr/a_world_map_found_in_the_lobby_of_a_chinese_hotel/