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Gdansk turns out to be the amber capital of the world!
Who knew?
When the Baltic Sea was still a big lake 40 million or so years ago, and the subcontinent that today is Sweden/Norway/Finland was covered with vast and impenetrable coniferous forests, a now-lost river ran into the Baltic lake. This river carried the resin-heavy cones, sloughed branches, and dead trunks of these ancient pines, deposited them on the other side of the lake. In time, the resin fossilized, and the lake became a sea.
We call this fossilized resin “amber.” It lies in great veins, buried beneath the Baltic shallows and the fertile soils of what was once Pomerania and is now Pomorskie. (Both names are derived from the Latin po mare, which means “Land at the Sea.”)
Theoretically, at least, this amber could be mined like any other precious gem. Except amber is soft; any type of cost-effective excavation process would destroy it. So, instead, the world’s amber supply is controlled by serendipity. When winter gales lash the Baltic, they spit up treasures from the deep, and the next day, the beaches are littered with pieces of amber and bladderwrack (which is what they call the kelp-like seaweed thereabouts.)
If you go out on to the beach the day after a storm, and if you’re lucky, you can find enough amber to make a necklace…
###
A week or so ago,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sulphuroxide turned me on to this essay: Situational Assessment 2017: Trump Edition.
I thought the essay was an absolutely amazing analysis in every respect: At a deep level, we are right in the middle of an existential conflict between two entirely different and incompatible ways of forming “collective intelligence”.
Its author, Jordan Greenhall, uses the term “Trump Insurgency” to highlight the phenomenon. Yes, the Trump Insurgency represents an almost complete rejection of globalism. But the other elements that characterize the phenomenon are much more interesting.
One of the elements that characterizes the Trump Insurgency is its rejection of legacy media, its replacement of that system with a very different, almost metastatic communications architecture.
Another characteristic is that the adversary the Trump Insurgency has identified is nothing less than the Deep State Network itself. Greenhall describes this battle as blitzkrieg versus trench warfare.
The final gladiatorial arena is the most interesting one to me: It’s the culture war.
Damien ____, the erstwhile nephew of my first marriage (yes, yes, I’m one of those bizarre people who thinks, Once a relative, always a relative. Except in the case of B’s asshole brother who once insulted me so unforgivably – You’re a bad mother – that if he were on fire, I wouldn’t piss on him to put that fire out) recently posted this on Facebook:
Well, hey. You know. I’ve thought a few of those things myself.
Greenwall coins the names “Blue Church/Red Religion” to describe the two opposing forces in this battle for hearts and minds. I like this! Very House of York v. House of Lancaster-ish.
Greenwall predicts that the Blue Church will lose this war. He goes on to say that losing this war may not be an altogether bad thing. While the Blue Church does support many fundamental and important values in a way that the Red Religion does not, it monopolizes the instruments of culture and power; it prefers to keep its adherents dependent; it does not seek to empower them.
What happens when the war is over?
Those of us who are votaries of neither Blue Church nor Red Religion may be able to come together to inform and build a new world based on better ideas about collective intelligence.
###
Spacey stuff, yes? Right up my alley.
Thing is several other people I know read this essay around the same time that I did and were similarly impressed. One of them is an acquaintance of – my Gawd! Can it be? – some 30 years who is quite business savvy, a self-made millionaire and real go-getter, an innovator, and that person has begun the process of joining the Blue Church/Red Religion agnostics into a viable virtual network of sorts.
It’s too soon to say what – if anything – will come of this network.
Maybe nothing.
But it’s been ver-r-r-y interesting to say the least to be in communication with others who share my basic perspective.
Which is that there was no good choice or bad choice in the last election.
They were both fucked.
###
As a beautiful young woman many years ago, I was always having crises.
And the person I always went to for wise counsel in crisis was Rik.
“Here’s the thing,” Rik told me. “You think you have two choices: You can say yes, or you can say, no. But see, there’s a third choice: You can walk away.”
In other words, you can head in an entirely different direction.
I will never walk away from the fight against injustice, racism, misogyny, systemic cruelties of any kind.
I will continue to fight against Islamic targeting – ya wanna ban Muslims? How ‘bout you look at Saudi Arabia! Seems like most of the real terrorists have had links to the Saudi regime! But don’t ban refugees whose homes have been destroyed by a proxy war! (The boys throw stones at the frogs for sport, but the frogs die in earnest.)
I will continue fighting for the equality of women. I will fight for science and the reality of climate change.
But I’m not gonna lift one finger for the Democratic party. I’ll look for ways to leverage existing Democratic party infrastructure insofar as that’s useful in pursuit of my own objectives. But I have no interest whatsoever in any crusade against Republicans.
Because I’m interested in the creation of a political movement that can actually rise to the challenges of the 21st century.
Who knew?
When the Baltic Sea was still a big lake 40 million or so years ago, and the subcontinent that today is Sweden/Norway/Finland was covered with vast and impenetrable coniferous forests, a now-lost river ran into the Baltic lake. This river carried the resin-heavy cones, sloughed branches, and dead trunks of these ancient pines, deposited them on the other side of the lake. In time, the resin fossilized, and the lake became a sea.
We call this fossilized resin “amber.” It lies in great veins, buried beneath the Baltic shallows and the fertile soils of what was once Pomerania and is now Pomorskie. (Both names are derived from the Latin po mare, which means “Land at the Sea.”)
Theoretically, at least, this amber could be mined like any other precious gem. Except amber is soft; any type of cost-effective excavation process would destroy it. So, instead, the world’s amber supply is controlled by serendipity. When winter gales lash the Baltic, they spit up treasures from the deep, and the next day, the beaches are littered with pieces of amber and bladderwrack (which is what they call the kelp-like seaweed thereabouts.)
If you go out on to the beach the day after a storm, and if you’re lucky, you can find enough amber to make a necklace…
###
A week or so ago,
sulphuroxide turned me on to this essay: Situational Assessment 2017: Trump Edition.I thought the essay was an absolutely amazing analysis in every respect: At a deep level, we are right in the middle of an existential conflict between two entirely different and incompatible ways of forming “collective intelligence”.
Its author, Jordan Greenhall, uses the term “Trump Insurgency” to highlight the phenomenon. Yes, the Trump Insurgency represents an almost complete rejection of globalism. But the other elements that characterize the phenomenon are much more interesting.
One of the elements that characterizes the Trump Insurgency is its rejection of legacy media, its replacement of that system with a very different, almost metastatic communications architecture.
Another characteristic is that the adversary the Trump Insurgency has identified is nothing less than the Deep State Network itself. Greenhall describes this battle as blitzkrieg versus trench warfare.
The final gladiatorial arena is the most interesting one to me: It’s the culture war.
Damien ____, the erstwhile nephew of my first marriage (yes, yes, I’m one of those bizarre people who thinks, Once a relative, always a relative. Except in the case of B’s asshole brother who once insulted me so unforgivably – You’re a bad mother – that if he were on fire, I wouldn’t piss on him to put that fire out) recently posted this on Facebook:
Well, hey. You know. I’ve thought a few of those things myself.
Greenwall coins the names “Blue Church/Red Religion” to describe the two opposing forces in this battle for hearts and minds. I like this! Very House of York v. House of Lancaster-ish.
Greenwall predicts that the Blue Church will lose this war. He goes on to say that losing this war may not be an altogether bad thing. While the Blue Church does support many fundamental and important values in a way that the Red Religion does not, it monopolizes the instruments of culture and power; it prefers to keep its adherents dependent; it does not seek to empower them.
What happens when the war is over?
Those of us who are votaries of neither Blue Church nor Red Religion may be able to come together to inform and build a new world based on better ideas about collective intelligence.
###
Spacey stuff, yes? Right up my alley.
Thing is several other people I know read this essay around the same time that I did and were similarly impressed. One of them is an acquaintance of – my Gawd! Can it be? – some 30 years who is quite business savvy, a self-made millionaire and real go-getter, an innovator, and that person has begun the process of joining the Blue Church/Red Religion agnostics into a viable virtual network of sorts.
It’s too soon to say what – if anything – will come of this network.
Maybe nothing.
But it’s been ver-r-r-y interesting to say the least to be in communication with others who share my basic perspective.
Which is that there was no good choice or bad choice in the last election.
They were both fucked.
###
As a beautiful young woman many years ago, I was always having crises.
And the person I always went to for wise counsel in crisis was Rik.
“Here’s the thing,” Rik told me. “You think you have two choices: You can say yes, or you can say, no. But see, there’s a third choice: You can walk away.”
In other words, you can head in an entirely different direction.
I will never walk away from the fight against injustice, racism, misogyny, systemic cruelties of any kind.
I will continue to fight against Islamic targeting – ya wanna ban Muslims? How ‘bout you look at Saudi Arabia! Seems like most of the real terrorists have had links to the Saudi regime! But don’t ban refugees whose homes have been destroyed by a proxy war! (The boys throw stones at the frogs for sport, but the frogs die in earnest.)
I will continue fighting for the equality of women. I will fight for science and the reality of climate change.
But I’m not gonna lift one finger for the Democratic party. I’ll look for ways to leverage existing Democratic party infrastructure insofar as that’s useful in pursuit of my own objectives. But I have no interest whatsoever in any crusade against Republicans.
Because I’m interested in the creation of a political movement that can actually rise to the challenges of the 21st century.
