UPTOWN FUNK - Attitude Adjustment - I NEED IT. Tired of crying.

Thus says the LORD: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted, because they are no more.”

“Dance is a song of the body. Either of joy or pain.” – Martha Graham

“We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.” – Friedrich
Nietzsche

“Work like you don’t need the money. Love like you’ve never been hurt. Dance like nobody’s watching.” – Satchel Paige

The Practical Limitations of Government or Dance Like It Is 1975

Because I am a Women's issues gadfly, I troll the Internet message boards for a chance to argue Women's issues. One argument I hear fairly often goes sort of like this: 

"No, you are not in control of your body because The Gummint makes laws about what you can do with it. You can't just take drugs, for example. Or prostitute."

Actually, I can take drugs if I so choose. And I have. I am astounded that anyone thinks The Rules keep people good. It plainly evident that it is humanity's goodness and longing for peace that keeps The Peace of the Rule of Law.

I can choose whatever I want and pay for it. The government has only two responses to behavior it wishes I would not do: prohibition and punishment. These are weak responses in the face of psychoses and/or casual and joyful wrongdoing. How so? Follow me.

I had to have a background check to do a job. I came up with a spotless record. I breathed a sigh of relief because I subscribe to the Rule of Law for the most part, I want my government to be effective and expect it to be, and I thought my Sin would surely find me.

My arrest in 1975 for growing 13 six foot tall marijuana plants in the greenhouse of my country home never showed up. Only time I ever got arrested. Somehow the Police got the idea that my house was the East Coast depot for all the Humboldt County Green. They sent a truck to tow away the bales of marijuana and three squad cars. I was out. They left me note: "Mrs. B, please come on over to the police station." So fully expecting to be slammed into the pokey, I ambled on over to the station house.

They booked me. I confessed to the Judge so they would let my innocent gardener go. The Russian carpenter living in the basement confessed too.  I plead guilty to Misdemeanor Cultivation of a Controlled Dangerous Substance. Cost me a $185.00 fine. Cops took the plants and the baggie with about a gram in it that belonged to Sergei.

All of this happened because the municipal dog catcher had the hots for me and came round to put the make on me one afternoon. I think, on the whole, that even though I had no house I could see out any window, and my nearest neighbor was two miles away, it was a mistake to swim naked in the pool.

Ah, the War on Drugs. The Gummint is not good at "controlling my body." And not good at keeping track of crime and Evildoers like me. Good thing I am not a psychopath and I am sober. Think how much trouble I could get into if I tried, know what I mean? And there are people out there trying every day.

So let us just shed the idea that order is imposed and can be imposed by the government without the cooperation of the people right now. I leave you with these thoughts from Lao Tzu translated by Herrymon Maurer.

Govern the country by regular rules;
Direct the army by cunning moves;
But win the world by avoiding fuss.
How do I know that this is so?
Inward light!

Beneath heaven,
The more rules and prohibitions there are,
The poorer the people become.
The sharper the weapons there are,
The greater the country's confusion.
The cleverer the people become,
The more cunning acts take place.
The more laws and orders there are,
The more thieves and robbers appear.

Therefore the sage says:
I do nothing,
And the people of themselves reform.
I love stillness,
And the people of themselves grow straight.
I don't fuss,
And the people of themselves get rich.
I don't want,
And the people of themselves grow simple.

When the law is dumb dumb,                      

The people are simple simple.

When the law is smart smart,
The people are broke broke.
Good fortune rests on bad fortune;
Bad fortune hides in good fortune.
Who knows the end of this?

It does not stop:
The normal turns into the odd;
The good turns into the weird.
Long have the people been in a stew!

Therefore the sage is
Severe, but he doesn't cut;
Exact, but he doesn't hurt;
Straight, but he doesn't strain;
Bright, but he doesn't dazzle.

Ya think Hillz is enjoying Trump's Mess. Or doing Confused Mourning?

From Jonathan “Song a Day Man” Mann. He writes a song every day. Good Mann.

Hillz is the Dancing Queen. No dance more American than the Shimmy. See below:

Something so sweet and innocent about Burlesque StripTease in retrospect.

You were once wild here. Don’t let them tame you. – Isadora Duncan

When you are on stage, you are having an affair with three thousand people.
- Gelsey Kirkland

First Day of Spring 2018

“If winter comes, can spring be far behind?”
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ode to the West Wind

Today is the official First Day of Spring. The United Nations declared this is official International Happiness Day.

Humbug! We have a 24 hour Winter Storm Warning In Philadelphia today. Happy Spring all the same. I am planning my garden. It must be Spring.

Jeffrey Koterba is the cartoonist. His blog is HERE.

Keep Dancing, Orlando!

“Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free.” ― Rumi

Cops keep this up, I will experience a change in attitude. Go Firefighters too! Never stop dancing. Never.

Via ABC News:

Weeks after three horrific tragedies hit the Orlando area, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department has found a way to keep the city’s spirits up.

"We’re here for an important announcement today. I wanna keep Orlando smiling. Keep dancing, Orlando!”

My Garden Bit Me

I fell down hard on my hip which was a good thing because there was a biggish branch that was put there to stick me in stomach. I wiggled on by.

X-rays tomorrow. I am fine. Black and blue is all. I will back. You all just be decent while I am gone or not. I am too woozy to type.

Vanuatu is in the news again... - Bede's Beat

There was a major earthquake 35km NE of Port-Olry on 20 October. Fortunately no casualties and minimal damage was reported.

Flag of Vanatu

But the news that is really grabbing Australasia and Oceania's attention is that -- after being convicted by the Vanuatu Republic's Supreme Court on corruption charges along with 13 other legislators on October 9 -- Vanuatu's Parliamentary Speaker Marcellino Pipite immediately invoked one of his powers as "acting president", since President Baldwin Lonsdale happened to be abroad on the 9th, to pardon himself and the other 13 MPs. Immediately upon his return, President Lonsdale overturned the pardons. On October 21st, the Supreme Court ruled the pardons unconstitutional.

Coat of Arms of Vanuatu 

We hear of or read about places such as Vanuatu, but what about the people who actually live there?

Vanuatu is home to the "Jeux d'eau" or "Water Games" -- the highlight of which are Water Percussion competitions and demonstrations.
The following clip contains footage from the Jeux d'eau 2007, shot by videographers from the Museum of Music in Paris.

The following clip contains a demonstration of water percussion filmed at Banks Island, Vanuatu.

It is raw footage filmed by AJ Hickling as part of a self-funded hour-and-a-half film exploring Vanuatuan culture through percussion and rhythms, "Evolving Rhythms - Island Adventures"

The film contains some amazing performances, but the filmmaker's attention span is less than I prefer when i drum with someone, as much of the music is presented in tantalizingly (and maddeningly) short clips of local performers, whose performances are often used as samples rather than featured in full and explained and explored... Perhaps AJ should have done more listening and less smoking during his trip...

Here is an example of a Vanuatuan "stomp dance", filmed at a Chiefmaking ceremony in Bethel Village, Vanuatu. The percussion is provided by slit drums.

The final clip is footage of a ceremonial dance, of a type known as a "kastom dance", performed by the Smol Nambas people of Vanuatu. It was recorded on Maskelynes, one of the very small Vanuatuan islands, located off the coast of the larger island of Peskarus. The percussion instrument being played is a slit gong drum. The dance they are performing is called the "raft dance" and tells of how the Smol Nambas came to live on Maskelynes. 

The videographer notes that -- while the ceremonies captured in this video are very sacred and performed at very specific times -- "The men were keen for me to film them and put the footage on the internet for the world to see but I was forbidden to show footage to any villager."

No Dancing in the Street

Banksy tells it like it is. --------------------------->

In 1964, it was safe to dance in the street. And Martha and the Vandellas were leading the dance in Detroit with their signature single.

In 2014, the cops knock you down for dancing in New York City. You dancing? What the fuck is the matter with you?

I call Philly the Land of a Thousand Dances. I wonder if it is still safe to dance in the street in my city.

Planning a trip the the Big Apple to celebrate Christmas anytime soon? Do not bring your dancing shoes or your sense of humor. Laughing and dancing get you beat up in New York City.

Where are you, Sgt. Shamar Thomas? We need you.

The Dancing Man is the name given to the man who was filmed dancing on the street in Sydney, Australia, after the end of World War II. On 15 August 1945, a reporter took note of a man's joyful expression and dance and asked him to do it again. The man consented and was caught on motion picture film in an Australian edition of the newsreel Movietone News. The film and stills from it have taken on iconic status in Australian history and culture, and symbolise victory in the war.

Dance and the World Will Dance with You

This video is one of the most inspiring I have seen of late. Derek Sivers is remarkably astute. Below is a link to his blog. This is how new movements and unique projects begin and grow in my experience. Someone stands for the idea and develops the intention and begins the dance. Then the second and third and nth followers show up. A profound idea is here in a silly hat.

http://sivers.org/ff

I offer a bit of the Tao Te Ching, translation by Herrymon Maurer, that seems appropriate. The Tao Te Ching was written by Lao Tzu (translated "Old Man") as a moral and spiritual treatise and counsel for Leaders and Creators.

41

When a superior man hears about Tao,
He goes after it diligently.
When an average man hears about Tao,
He both gets it and loses it.
When an inferior man hears about Tao,
He laughs loudly at it.
If he did not laugh,
It would not be Tao.
There is an old saying:
The bright way looks dark;
The forward way looks backward;
The smooth way looks rough;
High virtue looks low;
Great whiteness looks defiled.
Broad virtue looks deficient;
Solid virtue looks illicit;
Simple virtue looks decayed.
Great space has no corners.
Great talent ripens late.
Great music is out of key.
The great symbol is out of shape.
Tao is without name and hidden.
Hence Tao helps and completes.