“Things do not ‘happen.’ Things are made to happen.”  --John F. Kennedy

"Deformity is commonly hideous in its effects. It corrodes character, leading to deceit, treachery, malignity and false living; and as often as not vitiates those entangled in the sufferer’s life as much as the sufferer himself."  --Ashley Montagu

"One doesn't work for effects, and one doesn't set up in the artist business. One studies and learns and works and thinks to develop oneself as an intelligent, sensitive, and aware human being: and out of the always-increasing resources of intelligence, sensitivity, and awareness, the human being makes music."  --Leonard Bernstein

"When, years ago, I puzzled over the strange research for my book American Cosmic, I came to a recognition that Nietzsche had predicted a new form of something other than secular, Darwinian evolution. To open my book, I quoted Nietzsche’s proverbial question, posed in The Antichrist, to frame the issue: “Two thousand years have come and gone, and not a single new god!” I thought that the answer to Nietzsche’s question/observation was best stated by David Bowie’s statement, “The Internet is an alien life form.” Therefore, this new religion or order posited humanity as technologically transformed by non-human intelligence."  --D. W. Pasulka "2001: A Space Odyssey, Nietzsche, and the Nuclear Weapons-UFO Connection, Part Two of a Series."

https://dwpasulka.substack.com/p/2001-a-space-odyssey-nietzsche-and

Like the conservative movement more broadly, the [Heritage Foundation] organization wants young women to believe this is all being done for their benefit: that work is soulless and unfulfilling, that feminism has made women miserable, and that the real path to happiness is being a stay-at-home mom. The latest right-wing mantra for women? “Less burnout, more babies” 

...

This isn’t some fringe effort. From the tradwife explosion to MAHA disinformation about birth control, conservatives are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into convincing the next generation that the rapid erosion of their rights isn’t a political and moral crisis—but a lifestyle upgrade.They want our daughters and granddaughters to have zero information about their bodies and sex, no ability to protect themselves from pregnancy, limited choices for an intellectual and professional life, and—once our girls have been corralled into early marriages—few opportunities to leave.

Push them into the home, force them to get pregnant, rinse and repeat.

And while it’s certainly easier for the Heritage Foundation and their allies if American girls fall in line, conservatives in power are just as happy to force them onto that narrow path. As with all coercive men, the fact that young women don’t want this is part of the appeal.

The truth is that the next generation is as ambitious as ever. The futures they want for themselves are broad and bright. Sometimes that includes husbands and children, sometimes it doesn’t. The most recent studies show that young men are actually far more likely to name children as their top marker of personal success. (Women cite financial independence and their careers.) It’s young men who are having a hard time finding partners, and it’s young men who are lonely.

In other words, despite years of cultural messages to the contrary—it’s men, actually, who are desperate for marriage and babies.

I suppose that’s what Heritage’s roadmap and the conservative agenda is really about: building the world that men want, and forcing women to live inside it.

I’m far more interested in the big, bright life my daughter wants, and ensuring it stays her own.

Jessica Valenti "They're Coming for Our Daughters: The conservative plan to shrink girls’ futures"

https://jessica.substack.com/p/theyre-coming-for-our-daughters

 

"We’re watching a deliberate conservative cultural push designed to undermine women’s rights ... treating our [females'] humanity like a thought exercise makes it that much easier to legislate away ... But you know what actually makes women happy? Bank accounts. Voting rights. The ability to leave a bad marriage, and not have a miscarriage kill us."  --Jessica Valenti "Debating Away Our Humanity"

https://jessica.substack.com/p/cbs-news-feminism

"Music doesn't express any specific feelings. It only constitutes the formal framework in which, while listening, everyone experiences their own emotions according to their own personality."  --Witold Lutoslawski

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."  --Albert Einstein

"Music in any generation is not what the public thinks of it but what the musicians make of it."  --Virgil Thomson

 "It is surprising how easily one can become used to bad music"  --Felix Mendelssohn

"Why Don't We Do It In The Road?"  --Billy Shears after being asked about the "Abbey Road" album cover.

"Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that makes the flowers grow, not thunder."  --Rumi

 “Ah, but if less is more, then just think how much more more will be."  --Dr. Frasier Crane

I didn’t suddenly become reckless when I stopped believing in God. I became more intentional.

And in some ways, more afraid — because now there was no cosmic excuse waiting for me if I got it wrong.

Losing my belief in an afterlife has only intensified this sense of responsibility. When I believed eternity was guaranteed, suffering in this life felt temporary. Tragic, yes — but ultimately part of a larger, divinely ordered story.

Now, this life is all I believe we have. And that makes other people’s pain feel unbearable in a new way.

It makes injustice feel urgent instead of theoretical.

It makes kindness feel like a moral emergency instead of a spiritual bonus point.

I feel more obligated now — not less — to help people, to show up, to reduce harm where I can, because there is no heavenly reset button waiting on the other side.

If something matters, it matters here.

If someone is suffering, it matters now.

And if I make a harmful choice, I can’t outsource responsibility to God, fate or a divine plan.

I have to own it.

That’s the part no one warned me about when I left religion:

Morality doesn’t get lighter.

It gets heavier.

--Sami Garrison 

On her way to work one morning

Down the path along the lake

A tender-hearted woman saw a poor half-frozen snake.

His pretty colored skin had been all frosted with the dew.

"Oh well," she cried, "I’ll take you in, and I’ll take care of you."

"Take me in oh tender woman

Take me in, for heaven’s sake

Take me oh tender woman," sighed the broken snake.

She wrapped him up all cozy in a curvature of silk

Then laid him by the fireside with honey and some milk

Now she hurried home from work that night as soon as she arrived,

She found that pretty snake she’d take in had been revived. She was happy.

"Take me in, oh tender woman.

Take me in, oh heaven’s sake.

Take me in oh tender woman," sighed the broken snake.

Now she clutched him to her bosom, "You’re so beautiful," she cried.

"But if I hadn’t brought you in by now, heavens, you might have died."

Now she stroked his pretty skin and then she kissed him and held him tight.

But instead of saying thank you, that snake gave her a vicious bite!

"Take me in, oh tender woman,

Take me in, for heaven’s sake,

Take me in oh tender woman," sighed the vicious snake.

"I saved you," cried that woman,

"And you bit me heavens why?

You know your bite is poisonous and now I’m going to die!"

"Oh shut up, silly woman," said the reptile with a grin.

"You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in."

--Al Wilson, The Snake

Southern trees bear strange fruit

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root

Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees

Pastoral scene of the gallant south

The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth

Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh

Then the sudden smell of burning flesh

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck

For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop

Here is a strange and bitter crop

--Billie Holliday, Strange Fruit

Be calm; for only by calmly considering our lives can we achieve our purpose to live together — be calm — love me — Today — yesterday — what tearful longing for you — for you — you — my life — my all — all good wishes to you — Oh, do continue to love me — never misjudge your lover’s most faithful heart.

every yours

every mine

ever ours

--Beethoven to his Immortal Beloved

“If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.”  --Seneca