November Eve Approaches
And I don't know what to write.
Perhaps my celebration of the season will be limited to Brenna's do at Je'Bon Wednesday night. So be it. There were other nights, other years. Indeed, I recall an early November evening at Galapagos in Brooklyn, and have a YouTube link to remind me of it. And Veteran's Day, as we name the end date of the War to End All Wars, which wasn't, will mark a decade.
It is, or rather will be, for us Celts, a new year.
A time for resolutions? Perhaps, in a sense. Discernments may be a better term.
I discern that my discovery of Don Colacho may continue to orient and console me in many ways.
I discern that my involvement with Zurvita will take hold and flourish while my other business ventures continue.
I discern that I will need to spend more time on the Internet away from Facebook, which had been my main venue since I got fed up with LiveJournal and Taki stopped publishing me, and that I will need to gather up and edit a body of work for print publication.
In a week's time the political situation will have clarified itself. Perhaps some of the spiritual poison of the election season will dissipate, at least for another year or so. Is the Day of the Dead auspicious for voting? The idea is amusing.
Perhaps my celebration of the season will be limited to Brenna's do at Je'Bon Wednesday night. So be it. There were other nights, other years. Indeed, I recall an early November evening at Galapagos in Brooklyn, and have a YouTube link to remind me of it. And Veteran's Day, as we name the end date of the War to End All Wars, which wasn't, will mark a decade.
It is, or rather will be, for us Celts, a new year.
A time for resolutions? Perhaps, in a sense. Discernments may be a better term.
I discern that my discovery of Don Colacho may continue to orient and console me in many ways.
I discern that my involvement with Zurvita will take hold and flourish while my other business ventures continue.
I discern that I will need to spend more time on the Internet away from Facebook, which had been my main venue since I got fed up with LiveJournal and Taki stopped publishing me, and that I will need to gather up and edit a body of work for print publication.
In a week's time the political situation will have clarified itself. Perhaps some of the spiritual poison of the election season will dissipate, at least for another year or so. Is the Day of the Dead auspicious for voting? The idea is amusing.
Facebook Down
A fantasy story about a network for bunnywabbits. Oh, wait...
In related news. Got bored with Ancient Faith Radio. Went back to WQXR. That's boring too.
Did I mention that my FB friend Ray recorded a webinar about the current Numis Network promotion? If you are curious about what I have been blathering on about, check out http://promo.arisbe.net . Yeah, I thought it was important enough to set up a subdomain for it. Then again, that's the sort of thing I do. I was even thinking about setting one up for this journal. If I do it will probably be journal.arisbe.net.
Waiting somewhat impatiently for Diaspora to go live. Then Facebook can kiss my... diaspora.
Must go out to the drugstore for some family meds.
Later, dudes.
PS -- if you're reading this on LJ, consider DW.
In related news. Got bored with Ancient Faith Radio. Went back to WQXR. That's boring too.
Did I mention that my FB friend Ray recorded a webinar about the current Numis Network promotion? If you are curious about what I have been blathering on about, check out http://promo.arisbe.net . Yeah, I thought it was important enough to set up a subdomain for it. Then again, that's the sort of thing I do. I was even thinking about setting one up for this journal. If I do it will probably be journal.arisbe.net.
Waiting somewhat impatiently for Diaspora to go live. Then Facebook can kiss my... diaspora.
Must go out to the drugstore for some family meds.
Later, dudes.
PS -- if you're reading this on LJ, consider DW.
So what's up with my business(es)?
Numis Network knocked my socks off Wednesday night by lowering the cost of entry to below zero -- $75, and they throw in a graded numismatic coin worth over $100. "That sucks," says my daughter, thinking of what I paid. But I don't think so. After all, I do need people to join, and the price was a problem for many, at least many folks I know. If you don't know what I'm talking about, industry legend Ray Higdon has created a webinar which is for now pretty much the last word on the subject. I have set up an autoresponder for it, and am in the process of setting the latter up as a subdomain.
From White Harlem to Old Byzantium
Spent yesterday afternoon in a comfy chair in reading room next to the old Philosophy Library with Dvornik's history of the Photian schism and Centuries of Meditations, neither of which were on the shelves of the old PL. I am a bit more gruntled about the removal of the philosophy books to a room by the entrance and of the portraits to God knows where -- probably Philosophy Hall.
Wasn't much of a schism as far as I can tell until 1054 revived the more extreme positions. The Pope of Old Rome, who had had problems with the appointment of Patriarch Ignatius, had problems with his forced resignation. Tough. Ignatius had been part, though probably an unknowing part, of a conspiracy to murder the emperor, and was lucky to be allowed to live, even in detention. At least Photius was properly elected, as Ignatius had not been. To be sure, he was a layman at the time, though one who had felt called to the monastic life, and one of the co-consecrating bishops was considered suspended by Rome. Still, Papa Nicholas was willing to forget all that if the Empire was willing to give his Franks control of Bulgaria. Well, the emperor was murdered after all and Ignatius rehabilitated, and Photius took an honorable retirement until Ignatius met his end and he was again properly elected with no complaints from Rome. In between there was of course the Eighth Ecumenical Council. Two of them, one accepted by the Catholics and one by the Orthodox. Each hurling anathemas until the air was thick with them. Which proved very useful to both sides a couple of hundred years later. And to Dr. Rudolph Steiner more recently.
That's what I get from the first third of the book.
To which I reply -- Can't we all just get along?
Evidently not.
Meanwhile I am writing (in my head) a post titled, Professional Integrity is a Luxury: Make Sure You Can Afford It. Based on a painful personal experience. Painful not because I was put to the test, but because somebody else was. He failed. I was punished. And that's the way the world goes.
Meanwhile, I do hope you have visited my business site at http://numis1.com/arisbe
Have a a great Fourth.
Wasn't much of a schism as far as I can tell until 1054 revived the more extreme positions. The Pope of Old Rome, who had had problems with the appointment of Patriarch Ignatius, had problems with his forced resignation. Tough. Ignatius had been part, though probably an unknowing part, of a conspiracy to murder the emperor, and was lucky to be allowed to live, even in detention. At least Photius was properly elected, as Ignatius had not been. To be sure, he was a layman at the time, though one who had felt called to the monastic life, and one of the co-consecrating bishops was considered suspended by Rome. Still, Papa Nicholas was willing to forget all that if the Empire was willing to give his Franks control of Bulgaria. Well, the emperor was murdered after all and Ignatius rehabilitated, and Photius took an honorable retirement until Ignatius met his end and he was again properly elected with no complaints from Rome. In between there was of course the Eighth Ecumenical Council. Two of them, one accepted by the Catholics and one by the Orthodox. Each hurling anathemas until the air was thick with them. Which proved very useful to both sides a couple of hundred years later. And to Dr. Rudolph Steiner more recently.
That's what I get from the first third of the book.
To which I reply -- Can't we all just get along?
Evidently not.
Meanwhile I am writing (in my head) a post titled, Professional Integrity is a Luxury: Make Sure You Can Afford It. Based on a painful personal experience. Painful not because I was put to the test, but because somebody else was. He failed. I was punished. And that's the way the world goes.
Meanwhile, I do hope you have visited my business site at http://numis1.com/arisbe
Have a a great Fourth.
Entry tags:
Social Media and Me
I'm a Yahoo! groupie. At least I was. I had been active on E-groups when Yahoo! acquired them, and remained active, especially since Yahoo! had acquired my webmail host, Rocketmail. I joined quite a few groups, many quite esoteric, with few posts a week, or even a month. Then, around 2002, Yahoo! seemed to give up on groups, and the interface for checking your groups on the web became so clunky I almost never used it. Now I see that something called Grouply -- http://www.grouply.com -- has built its own front end to Yahoo! and Google Groups, making them fun again. By the way, it looks an aweful lot like Ning, and Ning networks, which used to be free but aren't any more, are moving over there. That's how I found it. Now I was a big fan of Ning when they started out, but not any more, and I think I will be moving my own small network in a day or two. One thing I like is that it reminds me just a little of Delphi Forums, where I started two or three back in '97 or so. It seems a bit homier than MySpace and Facebook, social networking for the rest of us. I suggest you take a look, and, if you join, I invite you to friend me there.
Revisited
Thirty years ago I qualified for a Teachers College alumnus ID, good for admission to the Columbia libraries and some other services as well. I have one now. Things are largely unchanged, both at TC and Butler, the former a bit seedier, cafeteria still unairconditioned, unlike the new Starbucks concession upstairs. I had been told the Philosophy Library was still intact, but it isn't. The interior balconies were still in place, but with a different range of books, and the portraits are gone. I wandered about to get a little used to the place, caught a 104 back down to 72nd Street.
I will not say it is where I lost my innocence. Or where I held on to it at what ghastly cost.
I will not say it is where I lost my innocence. Or where I held on to it at what ghastly cost.
Guilty
I am far behind in reading your posts, and I guess I won't come here often enough unless I start posting again. I admit I spend a lot of time on Facebook. Facebook is Slacker City, a place to share links, and to comment on links others have shared. It's also full of Klansmen (should I say Klanspersons?) and Nazis whom I somehow attracted when I was writing for that Taki fellow.
And I guess you could blame Taki for my becoming less active here. Why 'blog when you can write something you can sell? And LJ is not exactly your high class joint in online blogging communities. Well, I guess it is, in a way. It wasn't my idea to come here anyway -- that Russian woman moved my whole bunch of friends -- then quit herself. Anyway.
So what am I up to? Back in multilevel marketing, for one thing. I found the one product I didn't mind accumulating on autoship. Coins. Silver coins. Graded, certified, numismatic silver coins. At a good price. I am not going to go into that here. If you want to know more, there is a well done presentation at http://numis1.com/arisbe .
And that has moved me to work on my own website, now at http://frankpurcell.net . Not much there at the moment, but you can sign up for the notification list at http://subscribe.arisbe.net -- and if you do you will, as a free bonus, be redirected to info about the coin business. That's what I love about TrafficWave. If you ever need an autoresponder, they are the people to go to. In fact they are (cleverly) set up as an MLM, so if you have three friends who need autoresponders, yours is free. I mean yours are free -- it's an all you can eat price. Let's see if I can remember the URL, since I am popping in URLs -- let's try http://trafficwave.net/members/arisbe . I will test it when I save this, delete it if it's wrong.
Now will go to bed for a couple of hours. Srsti is back from Alaska, Maya is off for the Summer, so my best 'puter time is at night.
And yes, that was Nazi in the bad sense of the term. In fact I can't think of a good one at the tired moment.
Be well, peeps. Se y'all soon.
And I guess you could blame Taki for my becoming less active here. Why 'blog when you can write something you can sell? And LJ is not exactly your high class joint in online blogging communities. Well, I guess it is, in a way. It wasn't my idea to come here anyway -- that Russian woman moved my whole bunch of friends -- then quit herself. Anyway.
So what am I up to? Back in multilevel marketing, for one thing. I found the one product I didn't mind accumulating on autoship. Coins. Silver coins. Graded, certified, numismatic silver coins. At a good price. I am not going to go into that here. If you want to know more, there is a well done presentation at http://numis1.com/arisbe .
And that has moved me to work on my own website, now at http://frankpurcell.net . Not much there at the moment, but you can sign up for the notification list at http://subscribe.arisbe.net -- and if you do you will, as a free bonus, be redirected to info about the coin business. That's what I love about TrafficWave. If you ever need an autoresponder, they are the people to go to. In fact they are (cleverly) set up as an MLM, so if you have three friends who need autoresponders, yours is free. I mean yours are free -- it's an all you can eat price. Let's see if I can remember the URL, since I am popping in URLs -- let's try http://trafficwave.net/members/arisbe . I will test it when I save this, delete it if it's wrong.
Now will go to bed for a couple of hours. Srsti is back from Alaska, Maya is off for the Summer, so my best 'puter time is at night.
And yes, that was Nazi in the bad sense of the term. In fact I can't think of a good one at the tired moment.
Be well, peeps. Se y'all soon.
Been a while
Though not so long as I have been off LJ. Been posting a lot of links on FB, though. Many of them about that Catholic sex thing. Some of them not. If you want to friend me there, "arisbe" is still the handle. Oh, hell, why don't I give you the whole link? http://www.facebook.com/arisbe should work. Tired and a tad lacking of gruntled; good night.
Hello, world!
So. Here I am on a new service. Why? When I read about Dreamwidth standing up to Google for freedom of expression I was on my LJ Friends' page bitching to myself about how all those ads were messing with my ability to scroll down smoothly. This is LJ the way it used to be, before the Russians took over. No ads. Either you paid or you were invited.
I never wanted to go on LJ anyway. I had a 'blog on Blogger (before Google) for myself and for a community I was part of, a member of which had us migrate to LJ, which was marginally more user-friendly...
I was annoyed by the heavyhanded purging of suspected paedophiles, which reminded me of what AoL did in the old days, and of tribe's TOS tussles (unless they happened later). I liked the idea of Ning, but was depressed by their capitulation to the Google censors.
Now I would probably never have visited any of the censored content, but the Innernetz supposed to be about freedom. And we need more of that in this world, not less.
Ennyhoo, here I am. Former NYC Board of Ed teacher (adult literacy), former international banker (tech writer, business analyst and stuff), poet, philosopher, the sort of a paleocon who doesn't hate Mexicans, and calls himself a libertarian monarchist.
Known as "arisbe" on Facebook and Twitter.
I never wanted to go on LJ anyway. I had a 'blog on Blogger (before Google) for myself and for a community I was part of, a member of which had us migrate to LJ, which was marginally more user-friendly...
I was annoyed by the heavyhanded purging of suspected paedophiles, which reminded me of what AoL did in the old days, and of tribe's TOS tussles (unless they happened later). I liked the idea of Ning, but was depressed by their capitulation to the Google censors.
Now I would probably never have visited any of the censored content, but the Innernetz supposed to be about freedom. And we need more of that in this world, not less.
Ennyhoo, here I am. Former NYC Board of Ed teacher (adult literacy), former international banker (tech writer, business analyst and stuff), poet, philosopher, the sort of a paleocon who doesn't hate Mexicans, and calls himself a libertarian monarchist.
Known as "arisbe" on Facebook and Twitter.
Here's Waving at You!
For anyone on GoogleWave who wants to connect with me there, I am (as you might have guessed!) "frank.p.purcell" -- of course without the quotes.
Shelley, Prometheus Unbound, concluding lines
This is the day, which down the void abysm
At the Earth-born's spell yawns for Heaven's despotism,
And Conquest is dragged captive through the deep:
Love, from its awful throne of patient power
In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour
Of dread endurance, from the slippery, steep,
And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs
And folds over the world its healing wings.
Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance,
These are the seals of that most firm assurance
Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength;
And if, with infirm hand, Eternity,
Mother of many acts and hours, should free
The serpent that would clasp her with his length;
These are the spells by which to reassume
An empire o'er the disentangled doom.
To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.
At the Earth-born's spell yawns for Heaven's despotism,
And Conquest is dragged captive through the deep:
Love, from its awful throne of patient power
In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour
Of dread endurance, from the slippery, steep,
And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs
And folds over the world its healing wings.
Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance,
These are the seals of that most firm assurance
Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength;
And if, with infirm hand, Eternity,
Mother of many acts and hours, should free
The serpent that would clasp her with his length;
These are the spells by which to reassume
An empire o'er the disentangled doom.
To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.
Hallowe'en: The Adventure Begins
It was only this morning I committed to going to the thing at Je'Bon tonight, so had to give some thought to costume. Eventually I decided that the long black coat I bought to go out to Pennsylvania last year is a good match to the leather skull mask with the steel spikes I bought from the artist quite a few years ago now -- when I was still going to those Mensa parties at the Soldiers and Sailors Club. It even fits over my glasses. The coat is a couple of sizes too big, so I can pull the back of the collar over my head without strangling my armpits, and the gloves still in my pockets complete the outfit. So I can take a shower and maybe even finish folding the wash before heading downtown. And maybe I can ask someone there to snap my photo for everyone's delectation.
John Henry Newman at the Alexander Men Conference
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What then is it, that these little ones of Christ lack, who, without wilful sin, past or present, on their consciences, are in gloom and sorrow? What is the doctrine that will quicken them, and make their devotion healthy? What will brace them and nerve them, and make them lift up their heads, and will pour light and joy upon their countenance till it shines like the face of Moses when he came down from the Mount? What but the great and high doctrines connected with the Church? They are not merely taken into covenant with God; they are taken into His Church. They have not merely the promise of grace; they have its presence. They have not merely the conditional prospect of a reward; for a blessing, nay, unspeakable, fathomless, illimitable, infinite, eternal blessings are poured into their very hearts, even as a first step and an earnest from God our Saviour, of what He will do for those who love Him. They "are passed from death unto life," and are the children of God and heirs of heaven. Let us steadily contemplate this comfortable view, and we shall gain {146} strength, and feel cheerful and joyful in spite of our sins. O fearful follower of Christ, how is it thou hast never thought of what thou art and what is in thee? Art thou not Christ's purchased possession? Has He not rescued thee from the devil, and put a new nature within thee? Did He not in Baptism cast out the evil spirit and enter into thee Himself, and dwell in thee as if thou hadst been an Archangel, or one of the Seraphim who worship before Him continually? Much and rightly as thou thinkest of thy sins, hast thou no thought, I do not say of gratitude, but of wonder, of admiration, of amazement, of awful and overpowering transport, at what thou art through grace? When Jacob woke in the morning, his first thought was not about his sins or his danger, though he rightly felt both, but about God;-he said, "How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." [Gen xxviii. 17.] Contemplate then thyself, not in thyself, but as thou art in the Eternal God. Fall down in astonishment at the glories which are around thee and in thee, poured to and fro in such a wonderful way that thou art (as it were) dissolved into the kingdom of God, as though thou hadst nought to do but to contemplate and feed upon that great vision. This surely is the state of mind the Apostle speaks of in the text when he reminds us who are justified and at peace with God, that we have access to His royal courts, and stand in His grace, and rejoice in hope of His glory. All the trouble which the world inflicts upon us, and which flesh cannot but feel, sorrow, pain, care, bereavement, these avail not to disturb the {147} tranquillity and the intensity with which faith gazes upon the Divine Majesty. All the necessary exactness of our obedience, the anxiety about failing, the pain of self-denial, the watchfulness, the zeal, the self-chastisements which are required of us, as little interfere with this vision of faith, as if they were practised by another, not by ourselves. We are two or three selves at once, in the wonderful structure of our minds, and can weep while we smile, and labour while we meditate. http://www.newmanreader.org/works/parochial/volume4/sermon9.html
I'm Back. Sort of.
It's been a while.
For more pretentious remarks, check the blog at http://blog.arisbe.net . This LJ can also be reached at http://journal.arisbe.net. And you can join my ZenZuu network at http://zen.arisbe.net . Yes, I am going apesh*t with subdomains. I should probably set one up for my Facebook. And my MySpace, if that phrase is not redundant. And even if it is.
A month or so back I consolidated my domain registration and forwarding services, which had somehow become separated, and gained a subdomain functionality I never had before (for much less than I was paying, by the way).
First thing I did was set up my affiliate pages, first for my Clickbank publications, such as http://secrets.arisbe.net , then for products like internet calling from your cell phone ( http://button.arisbe.net ) -- boy, is that ugly -- is it my browser? Anyway, there's also health stuff like human growth hormone precursor ( http://hgh.arisbe.net ) and green lipped mussel extract for arthritis and even asthma ( http://omega.arisbe.net ) and herbal remedies in general ( http://native.arisbe.net ). And pheromone spray, of course, with a business type approach ( http://trust.arisbe.net ) and what I consider a tackier approach, though probably a more advanced formula ( http://ascent.arisbe.net ). And, while we are on the subject of smells, there's always http://stinks.arisbe.net .
Not that I want you to buy any of this stuff. We don't do ads on LiveJournal. Just to see what I have been up to. Of course if you really want to make me rich in time for Christmas, I can't stop you, can I?
Meanwhile I keep getting ads for more and more hypnosis downloads, and I have discussed these at greater length at http://arisbe.net/hypno , which is on a wiki somewhere on Poland. Though I might migrate the site to Ning.
Bless you all. Time to do some wash.
For more pretentious remarks, check the blog at http://blog.arisbe.net . This LJ can also be reached at http://journal.arisbe.net. And you can join my ZenZuu network at http://zen.arisbe.net . Yes, I am going apesh*t with subdomains. I should probably set one up for my Facebook. And my MySpace, if that phrase is not redundant. And even if it is.
A month or so back I consolidated my domain registration and forwarding services, which had somehow become separated, and gained a subdomain functionality I never had before (for much less than I was paying, by the way).
First thing I did was set up my affiliate pages, first for my Clickbank publications, such as http://secrets.arisbe.net , then for products like internet calling from your cell phone ( http://button.arisbe.net ) -- boy, is that ugly -- is it my browser? Anyway, there's also health stuff like human growth hormone precursor ( http://hgh.arisbe.net ) and green lipped mussel extract for arthritis and even asthma ( http://omega.arisbe.net ) and herbal remedies in general ( http://native.arisbe.net ). And pheromone spray, of course, with a business type approach ( http://trust.arisbe.net ) and what I consider a tackier approach, though probably a more advanced formula ( http://ascent.arisbe.net ). And, while we are on the subject of smells, there's always http://stinks.arisbe.net .
Not that I want you to buy any of this stuff. We don't do ads on LiveJournal. Just to see what I have been up to. Of course if you really want to make me rich in time for Christmas, I can't stop you, can I?
Meanwhile I keep getting ads for more and more hypnosis downloads, and I have discussed these at greater length at http://arisbe.net/hypno , which is on a wiki somewhere on Poland. Though I might migrate the site to Ning.
Bless you all. Time to do some wash.
01 09 11
Got through the day without being exposed to the media on the subject, except for one bit. I was surfing around about a half hour ago when I saw the beginning of a rebroadcast of the Pope's visit to the World Trade Center site. It was enough. I had of course seen it live, broadcast to the enormous screens at Yankee Stadium, where I sat for hours in the cold fog waiting for him to arrive, but then there was no sound, and not much of a clue to what was going on. Early this afternoon I walked down to the river, as I had so often walked to the river at the World Financial Center in the months before the attack, not so much afterward, even when we had moved back to Barclay Street. I have often mused on the faces in the crowds I would see crossing over from the WTC to the WFC, and wondered how many of those lives had been obliterated and how many merely ruined, as some would say my own was when my job was moved to Chennai, perhaps in consequence of the attack, but perhaps not. Certainly my country was destroyed, not by the attacks themselves, but by the politicians who used them as a pretext for starting the war they had long promised their backers. In so doing they had befouled the pride and prostituted the grief of my city. The priest whose skull was crushed when he took off his helmet to pray for a fallen comrade did not die for this. Indeed, his helmet was later presented to the Bishop of Rome, an old, sick man keeping himself alive by sheer willpower -- and prayer -- to fight the Satanic power he felt emanating from the White House, a fight his successor gloriously reigning, whom I watched tonight, continues.