The Pope Defense
I just had the most ridiculous discussion with my husband. His mom collected red glassware, and we were debating which items to sell, which to store, and which we like enough to use and display:
He: I want to keep the ashtray. I like that ashtray.
Me: No problem. Do you want it outside where you smoke? Should I store it?
(There’s no smoking in our house, so I don’t see a reason to keep a glass ashtray on display, you see.)
He: It should go in the china cabinet.
Me: I don’t think so. It takes a lot of horizontal space, and we’re not going to use it often, if ever. Nobody smokes in the house. Why not take it outside and use it?
He: What if the Pope came over and wanted to smoke in the house? You wouldn’t want a nice ashtray for him to use?
Me: The only way I’m letting the Pope smoke in my house is if he agrees to change the Catholic Church’s positions on abortion, birth control, gay marriage and homosexuality in general. He does me that favor, he can smoke in my house with this ashtray.
The ashtray is in storage.
Starting August 1st, basic accounts’ original source files will be stored for one week from the upload date, after which they will be removed. Of course the converted Vimeo video will always be there in the Vimeo player, ready to be watched again and again, anywhere you choose to embed or share it. We will also still provide a download link so people can save the converted file to their computer (in MP4 format).
This new one-week policy applies to all basic accounts’ videos uploaded from this point onwards. For videos that were uploaded before this blog post, those original files will be available until August 1st, to give you some time to download them if you need to. After August 1st, those files will also be removed.
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Vlogging’s not something you give up. It’s something that naps beside you, dreaming of being woken up. ”
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Everybody is looking with a mixture of confidence and apprehension to the “statesmen” of the various peoples, ready to heap all praise on them if they “succeed in avoiding a war,” and ignoring the fact that it is only these very statesmen who ever cause a war, usually not even through their bad intentions, but by their unreasonable mismanagement of the affairs entrusted to them. ”
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Erich Fromm, The Sane Society, 1955
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I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don’t expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that’s what we do. ”
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This, then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed; to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well. The oppressors, who oppress, exploit, and rape by virtue of their power, cannot find in this power the strength to liberate either the oppressed or themselves. Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both.” ) ”
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- Friere (1972
My friend “the hummingbird” uses this after his email signature. He’s Diné (Navajo). It rings true. The people we oppress are the only ones who can liberate us.
Missbhavens wanted to know what the plants behind me are. They’re green / dry beans.
