Echinocentric @Echinocentric@social.cleverlibre.org

#Poet Nanao Sakaki was born 100 years ago. As a teenager, he saw the plane that dropped the A-bomb on #Nagasaki on his radar screen and became a life-long peace activist.

A #Zen Buddhist, he befriended #BeatGeneration poets like Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsberg. I once took a pee with Nanao, Ginsberg, and Snyder under a full moon thinking of Lew Welch's line, "So it's all come to this."

His poem "Break the Mirror" is excellent advice regarding the ego for the new year.

[photo by Bill Barol]

Israel as the only ‘democracy’ in the region? Sorry, Binyamin Netanyahu is taking away that excuse https://disunitedstates.com/2023/01/01/israel-as-the-only-democracy-in-the-region-sorry-binyamin-netanyahu-is-taking-away-that-excuse/

Charles Pierce says that in order to secure enough votes to become speaker, Kevin McCarthy will have to make a bargain with more than one devil:

"You see, McCarthy wants to be speaker of the House of Representatives. Nero didn't want to be emperor as much as McCarthy wants to be speaker. Poisoning his rivals being unavailable as a campaign strategy, McCarthy has determined instead to further poison the political culture."

#KevinMcCarthy #Republicans

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a42355661/kevin-mccarthy-speaker-multiple-ballots/

John Harris points to a line in Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon to discuss how British politicans are dealing with Brexit: “Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.” He writes,

"As a new political year begins, those nine words seem more apposite than ever, and they snugly fit one defining fact of our national predicament: that the wreckage of Brexit is all around us but our politicians will still not acknowledge it."

#Brexit

(1 of 2)

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/01/wreckage-of-brexit-politicians-denial

Some favorites from 2022, my first year of #astrophotography

Whenever #Perseverance digs just an inch deep in the ground around the Three Forks depot area, there is this light colored layer that shows up in the images. Seen earlier here: https://fosstodon.org/@65dBnoise/109565559607323850

Processed, cropped MCZ_RIGHT, FL: 110mm
RMC: 32.0378, Sol: 663, LMST: 13:20:14
Original: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020-raw-images/pub/ods/surface/sol/00663/ids/edr/browse/zcam/ZR0_0663_0725800895_178EBY_N0320378ZCAM03510_1100LMJ01.png
Credit: #NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/65dBnoise

#Mars2020 #solarocks #space

Simba

Trump gave Don Jr $1 million to bail him out

Jr still gets an allowance & fake loans from his dad to avoid taxes

He sells Bibles & $500 Cameos for a living & kills animals for fun

He posts naked pics of Hunter & about Trump’s dick size

But Hunter’s the failson?! Gimme a break

Ginni Thomas actively plotted with Meadows to overthrow the govt

She urged WI & AZ to overturn the election

She took $200,000 from someone who had a brief before Clarence & $680,000 from the Heritage Foundation

But now she’s claiming that SHE’s the victim?

Gimme a f’ing break

@markjacob

A good friend used to joke that if we were to find a way to bottle common sense, most people wouldn’t be capable of opening the bottle.

CDC with a Friday evening news dump on December 30th is peak 2022

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-variant-xbb-1-5-cdc-tracking-us-cases/

An abandoned Masonic temple
Gallery: https://www.abandonedamerica.us/abandoned-cleveland-newburgh-masonic-temple

#abandoned #photography #art

"Just give me five dead voters."

Senator Lindsey Graham
#VoterFraud

If you outlaw abortions, ban mask mandates, dictate what educators can teach in schools, and stop people from voting, safe to say you're not the party of limited government...

@auschwitzmuseum @histodons @museum it’s been 30 years since so was there but two things stay with me, the piles of shoes and suitcases jumbled together telling a fraction of the story of the number of people who came to and were murdered in that place and that it was the first time I had ever walked on ground that felt dead under my feet.

We all knew Elon Musk's public meltdown was going to make the title of biggest self-own of 2022 hard to snatch from his hands, but, BY CHEESES, Andrew Tate never steps down from a challenge. #AndrewTate