37 Comments

chill and regroup

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most of my need for this is short-term, as opposed to long or medium term.

for example, when playing tennis badly or making a few mistakes in a row i need to find a way to recenter and calm down and be less frantic so i can "play normal"

i usually have some sort Zen thing that i try to of. currently it is from a book i read recently, The Book of Five Rings that talks about learning the Japanese art of swordsmanship.

In strategy your spiritual bearing must not be any different from normal. Both in fighting and in everyday life you should be determined though calm. Meet the situation without tenseness yet not recklessly, your spirit settled yet unbiased. Even when your spirit is calm do not let your body relax, and when your body is relaxed do not let your spirit slacken. Do not let your spirit be influenced by your body, or your body be influenced by your spirit. Be neither insufficiently spirited nor over spirited. An elevated spirit is weak and a low spirit is weak. Do not let the enemy see your spirit.

In all forms of strategy, it is necessary to maintain the combat stance in everyday life and to make your everyday stance your combat stance. You must research this well.

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OUR CRUMBLING DEMOCRACY

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Ann Coulter tells Vivek she agreed with many of his policies but would not have voted for him because he's an Indian.

https://x.com/wayotworld/status/1788299840473952750?s=48&t=jD72hqTLYfhPtGGrTrZORA

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Saying the quiet part out loud. This is what racists do when they feel that they can. Their self-edit button gets jammed to being ineffective.

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i am not saying one way or the other (maybe i am ..). the ascendency of Trump has allowed a lot of people to say out loud what they have possibly been wanting to say for a long time. the "rules" in the 80s-90s made it very hard to say those things on TV or politics and not get immediately cast aside.

now that it is "ok" to say these things .. it might actually be better so that the actual conversation might happen. on the other hand, people get so turned off by the other side, perhaps there is even less possibility of conversation with people who you think are racist and intolerant.

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One of the comedians at the Tom Brady roast basically recited the (13+1) words, so yeah, the Overton Window has shifted a bit.

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May 10
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She was in relationship with Jimmie Walker, aka JJ "Dynamite" Evans from Good Times, at one time. This world is so confounding.

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Pot and Kettle refer Michael Cohen to the DOJ for lying to Congress

https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/chairmen-jordan-and-comer-refer-michael-cohen-doj-lying-congress

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Trump advisor Peter Navarro - who is in jail due to contempt of Congress due to ignoring a subpeen - has filed for an emergency release from jail because he doesn't like it in there.

https://www.rawstory.com/navarro-scared-emergency-release-prison/

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Folks in an economically challenged Appalachian county - pretty much on the same latitude as Washington DC - decide to spend $304k to name their schools BACK to confederate people. Their tests scores show that they are pretty dumb, so this tracks.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/09/us/shenandoah-county-confederate-school-names-reaj/index.html

https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/virginia/honey-run-elementary-226196

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It is dumb but I do think liberals in their messaging often come off like an old grandparent saying no no no don’t do this don’t do that and kind of set themselves up for this kind of juvenile skewering. I think we in the liberal/D side need to focus a bit on better, more positive messaging - ie, “do this” instead of “don’t do this”

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OTOH I guess some slice of the populace will like buffoons no matter what you do

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Also seems like mindless tribalism - whatever D’s are for we are against. No attempt to grapple with actual substance

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they couldn't afford to change the name on all their athletic equipment last time, so I guess they'll save some money by reusing the formerly outdated gear

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PRO

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SHE BLINDED ME WITH...

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Should be some good aurora viewing for the upper latitudes of the eastern half of the country. Alas, I'm a little too far south and it's going to be cloudy anyway (as it always is anytime the aurora dips down into the northeast)

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Crystal clear skies in Seattle and my spouse is out of town so I can’t get to a darker site :sob:

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DBD AV CLUB

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Rodrigo y Gabriela .. live in concert last night in Tarrytown NY.

this might be might my 3rd or 4th time seeing them live. fantastic show, ended strong with a lot of their classics and everyone standing and dancing for the last 30 min.

the is a joy and passion in live music that is impossible to replicate.

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we have tix to Norah Jones tonight in a rare streak of music events back-to-back.

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I just saw she’s going to be at the Kennedy Center but it is already sold out.

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fun fact. one of my good friends from freshman dorms at Cal was drummer w/ Norah Jones for many years on tour. he hurt is thumb skiing and never went back.

he currently lives in Portland OR and tours w/ Pink Martini, a pretty fun show if you ever get a chance to see them.

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In the articles about the Pirates calling up Skenes, I learned that Olivia Dunne is his gf. Makes him crossover famous I guess, like Kelce!

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ELSEWHERE IN COLLEGE

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CAL

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[From the Front Page] UC Regents recommend Southern Branch pays us $10m/year for irreconcilable differences.

https://writeforcalifornia.com/p/calimony-uc-regents-ucla-cal-10-million

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There goes their fund for the new coach after Kelly goes 4-8 this year

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You mean DeShaun Foster.

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Oh right, Kelly bolted to Ohio State! This is how little I think about UCLA now that they're in the Big Ten

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Maybe I will be more positive about this once ACC play starts, but dude it is SO LAME that UCLA/USC killed the Pac 12. It still just pisses me off

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USC has been wanting to kill off the conference for decades now. They got an opportunity to do it and hoodwinked UCLA into making it happen. My problem is less with USC - we all knew they thought they were too good for the Pac-8, 10, or 12.

But UCLA just basically said F*** you to Cal and the rest of the conference at the same time. That was not expected. The President of the UC system and the Board of Regents share blame in this in that they should have stopped this nonsense. They essentially aided and abetted the breakup of the conference by failing to act. Calimony is NOT NEARLY enough.

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They also hoodwinked the Regents and Drake. I can't imagine UCLA bolting w/o some plan for Cal would have been approved in retrospect. I guess Drake/Regents assumed the conference would still hold and/or Calford would receive a B1G invite? There has been so much hopeful thinking by all the actors associated with the P12 schools that has gone wrong throughout leading up to now. Just staggering ineptitude.

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It is just so shitty for every constituency. For players, sucks to commute all the way across country. For fans, I honestly do not care about FSU or Clemson or whatever. And this situation exists at every former P12 school - ironically even SC and UCLA!

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Pursuit of the almighty dollar makes fools of us all.

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