Orlando Massacre: Pulse One = Stonewall too

Posted on June 12, 2016 by ann li-summers

gettyimages-539534464

By ann summers

The framing of that meme of “the worst act of mass shooting in US history” comes not only as an “act of terror and an act of hate” but also raises some other peripheral issues in the early hours of its occurrence. Profiling speech acts whether oral or textual focuses some of the terrorist’s message, even as the media message creates new elements that constitute the message.

pulseOne.jpg

 

The shooter made two sets of investigated inflammatory remarks to co-workers by the dead shooter related to terrorists in the past four years. These were inconclusive.

The specter of the shootings in San Bernadino also has the context of workplace issues of hate speech as well as the attempt to affiliate with international terror.

Complete 911 conversations between the shooter and authorities have yet to be released.

So pledges to Daesh like pledges to flags are more arbitrary than they are random. A reminder of course that they have intent, and opportunity whose causality is more than the sum of media effects.

The takeaway from this not unlike previous attacks is that a combination of factors, some rationalized to result in a psychotic action much like racism and homophobia are part of the ensemble, some mediated, some as reported by the shooter’s family, more unmediated, and not as some might want to claim, “stochastic”. They are institutionally aided in terms of gun access by a state-licensed, security officer as well as matters of collateral effect.

Access to weapons and other familial background relates also to very recent purchases by the shooter, but also open homophobic speech acts as well as domestic violence. A side note of course about FL gun laws is the George Zimmerman resale of the gun returned to him after killing Trayvon Martin.

A coincident incident in Santa Monica involved a threat to today’s Pride Parade in West Hollywood, CA, makes it clear that it is more than media effects in terms of finding causality in potential attacks on specific identity groups.

AFP news agency

✔@AFP

Man arrested with multiple weapons, ammunition and bomb-making materials in his car sought to attack http://u.afp.com/ZaF4 

5:49 PM – 12 Jun 2016 · Washington, DC, United States
Photo published for Armed man sought to attack Gay Pride parade in LA: police

Armed man sought to attack Gay Pride parade in LA: police

Los Angeles (AFP) – An armed man arrested in California following a tip about a prowler told police he wanted to “harm” the Gay Pride parade in Los Angeles, authorities said Sunday.

 

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Posted in 2016 Election, Afghanistan, Breaking News, California, Conspiracy, Crime, DHS, Equal Rights, FBI, Florida, Government, Heroism, Holidays, Homosexual Rights, Law Enforcement, Media, Murder, Police, Politics, Presidential Elections, Society, Terrorism, Terrorists, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Walking with Walt Whitman – Leaves of Grass – Inscriptions – “Beginning My Studies”

Posted on June 12, 2016 by Joy of Fishes

Walt_Whitman,_cropped 1
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Walking with Walt Whitman
A daily installment from Leaves of Grass.

‌Inscriptions
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“Beginning My Studies”

Beginning my studies the first step pleas’d me so much,
The mere fact consciousness, these forms, the power of motion,
The least insect or animal, the senses, eyesight, love,
The first step I say awed me and pleas’d me so much,
I have hardly gone and hardly wish’d to go any farther,
But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs.

~ ❦ ~

Leaves of Grass – Wikisource
Image – Walt Whitman, age 35, from the frontispiece to Leaves of Grass, Fulton St., Brooklyn, N.Y., steel engraving by Samuel Hollyer from a lost daguerreotype by Gabriel Harrison (my frame) ~ Wikipedia

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Airborne Cat Plays It Cool

Posted on June 12, 2016 by wordcloud9

When pilots of small aircraft run through their pre-flight check lists, they may want to add one more item: inspect plane for stowaway cats.

Fortunately, this cat kept her cool, and made it to back to earth safely.

Pilot Romain Jantot, 28, got a shock while flying an open-air Skyranger plane over Kourou in French Guiana — an extra passenger. “I was extremely surprised when I saw her,” he told ABC News.

Jantot is currently training to become a professional helicopter pilot, and he practices at the “16-34 ULM Club,” where the cat is considered a mascot. “She is going to be famous all over the world and she doesn’t even have a name,” Jantot said. The cat is known as “Minou,” which is “Kitty” in French. “She’s kind of the club’s mascot. We see her every day and everybody gives her food when they’re at the club.”

Jantot said it was not the first time Minou has been in a plane’s wing, but it was “ the first time she was in the wing while the plane was in the air,” he said, “Her presence was not dangerous for the flight at all, but I just wanted to be sure that she wasn’t going to jump. So I slowed down the engine and I saw that she was already less afraid. If I had started to make big gestures she would have definitely tried to get out of the wing,” he explained. “I warned the passenger once I saw that everything was going OK. Then we took off again after having dropped off the cat.”

Minou was not harmed, and according to Jantot, just “ten minutes later, she had her nose in her food.”

One down, still eight lives to go.

cat with parchute

Posted in Aviation, Cats | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Notes in Emily Dickinson’s pocket – “Much madness is divinest sense” (Life, 11)

Posted on June 12, 2016 by Joy of Fishes

Emily_Dickinson_daguerreotype 3

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Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
’T is the majority
In this, as all, prevails.
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur,—you ’re straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.
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Emily is said to have carried a pencil and scraps of paper in her pocket in order to always be prepared when a poem came her way.

~  “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant.”  ~
❦
Image of Emily Dickinson – from the daguerreotype taken circa 1848. (my frame)
Poem – Emily Dickinson. Complete Poems. 1924.

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The Coffee Shop – Leonard Cohen – “Anthem” (music video)

Posted on June 12, 2016 by Joy of Fishes

The Coffee Shop is an open thread-style discussion forum for human interest news of the day.

Leonard Cohen Anthem snip

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Posted in Music, Short Video | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Walking with Walt Whitman – Leaves of Grass – Inscriptions – “When I Read the Book”

Posted on June 11, 2016 by Joy of Fishes

Walt_Whitman,_cropped 1Walking with Walt Whitman
A daily installment from Leaves of Grass.

~ ❦ ~

“When I Read the Book”

When I read the book, the biography famous,
And is this then (said I) what the author calls a man’s life?
And so will some one when I am dead and gone write my life?
(As if any man really knew aught of my life,
Why even I myself I often think know little or nothing of my real life,
Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and indirections
I seek for my own use to trace out here.)

~ ❦ ~

Leaves of Grass – Wikisource
Image – Walt Whitman, age 35, from the frontispiece to Leaves of Grass, Fulton St., Brooklyn, N.Y., steel engraving by Samuel Hollyer from a lost daguerreotype by Gabriel Harrison (my frame) ~ Wikipedia

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Sometimes Sad Stories Have Happy Endings

Posted on June 11, 2016 by wordcloud9

On May 31, operations were underway to rescue people trapped by the rising floodwaters of the Brazos  River in Texas. A camera operator  captured this footage of a Fort Bend rescue crew saving a dog, chained to the front porch of her home, left behind by the family.

The dog, named Archer, was taken to the Humane Society, which determined that she had been chained to the porch for some time, and declared her abandoned.

But the story doesn’t end there.  Fort Bend County Sheriff Troy Nehls, one of the rescuers of the two-year-old border collie mix, brought his family with him to the Humane Society to see how Archer was doing. It was love at first sight on all sides.

Archer with new family

Here’s Archer, happy to be home with her new family.

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Notes in Emily Dickinson’s pocket – “A precious, mouldering pleasure ’t is” (Life, 10)

Posted on June 11, 2016 by Joy of Fishes

Emily_Dickinson_daguerreotype 3

A precious, mouldering pleasure ’t is
To meet an antique book,
In just the dress his century wore;
A privilege, I think,

His venerable hand to take,
And warming in our own,
A passage back, or two, to make
To times when he was young.

His quaint opinions to inspect,
His knowledge to unfold
On what concerns our mutual mind,
The literature of old;

What interested scholars most,
What competitions ran
When Plato was a certainty,
And Sophocles a man;

When Sappho was a living girl,
And Beatrice wore
The gown that Dante deified.
Facts, centuries before,

He traverses familiar,
As one should come to town
And tell you all your dreams were true:
He lived where dreams were born.

His presence is enchantment,
You beg him not to go;
Old volumes shake their vellum heads
And tantalize, just so.

Emily is said to have carried a pencil and scraps of paper in her pocket in order to always be prepared when a poem came her way.

~  “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant.”  ~
❦
Image of Emily Dickinson – from the daguerreotype taken circa 1848. (my frame)
Poem – Emily Dickinson. Complete Poems. 1924.

Posted in Emily Dickinson, Poetry | Tagged , | 2 Comments

If Politicians Were Controlled by Space Aliens, Would We Notice?

Posted on June 10, 2016 by Joy of Fishes

This explains so much.

From reason.com, about CBS’s new show, Braindead:

The only real question about BrainDead is which CBS division produces it: news or entertainment. Because in the epoch of Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders, a show in which space aliens bore holes in the brain of Washington politicians and cause them to spout gibberish sounds more like an extension of 60 Minutes than the pulpy, black-humor sci-fi drama that BrainDead purports to be.

Not that BrainDead isn’t bleakly hilarious, to a pee-your-pants-laughing degree, and drive-in-movie creepy. It sooooo is, and it’s the show of the summer and possibly of the year. But not since The Werewolf Of Washington popped up during the 1973 summer of Watergate has Hollywood captured the moment’s political gestalt with such deadly accuracy….  Continue reading.

 

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Walking with Walt Whitman – Leaves of Grass – Inscriptions – “For Him I Sing”

Posted on June 10, 2016 by Joy of Fishes

Walt_Whitman,_cropped 1Walking with Walt Whitman
A daily installment from Leaves of Grass.

~ ❦ ~

“For Him I Sing”

For him I sing,
I raise the present on the past,
(As some perennial tree out of its roots, the present on the past,)
With time and space I him dilate and fuse the immortal laws,
To make himself by them the law unto himself.

~ ❦ ~

Leaves of Grass – Wikisource
Image – Walt Whitman, age 35, from the frontispiece to Leaves of Grass, Fulton St., Brooklyn, N.Y., steel engraving by Samuel Hollyer from a lost daguerreotype by Gabriel Harrison (my frame) ~ Wikipedia

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