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Having said that, ....

There's the non-questions where the voice rises at the END?

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Steve, there is a source reference book written in 1884 which informed me more than anything else I've read, about how / when / why 'marriage' began; and explaining 'marriage' and 'family' as ('business') contracts for transfer of property; and property as the definition of the State, or sovereignty.

Back when marriage and property and the State began ... was a long long time ago, way before the Egyptian dynasties, (which were before either the Hindu calendar, the Jewish (Hebrew) calendar, or the Chinese calendar began).

The book is The Origin of the Family, by Frederick Engels, and the entire of it is HERE

[ www.scribd.com/doc/4068357/Engels-The-Origin-of-t... ]

There is a lot in it to read and think about -- food for thought -- before one can say, comprehensively, that the ideas upset the gut, or cultural mores.

.

WOW.

For me that is T.M.I. (Too Much Information). For those TV viewers those years that is F.G.U.R.M.I. (Forest-Gump Unquestioning Role Model Indoctrination) -- 'behave like Gilligan, behave like Forest Gump, same same, be celebrated for it ... someday ... maybe.'

I 'shut out' Gilligan's Island because I couldn't identify with Gilligan as authentic for being re-cast of Maynard G. Krebbs -- actor Bob Denver, ( "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis", altho' "many" wasn't my most interest in the show, Tuesday Weld was), but in those days I hadn't realized an actor person is not the same as a character-role fiction. Come to think of it, I'm not sure I'm unconfused about it these days, either.

Anyway, HERE is the complete collection of full-length G.I. episodes. H.A.G.O. -- K.Y.O. www.Fancast.COM/tv/Gilligan-s-Island/97792/full-e...

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Shirley no one expects blondie here in the blog.

Blondie is in the comics. Letting your hair down is here in the blog.

Good one, Steve.

Good one, 'guy' of eulogy.

It makes me think that the modern equivalent of MIRRORS which ricochet light into dark fathoming reachs, is the use of webpage LINKS. That is, if we agree passing literate webpage information, pointed to by a LINK, reaching the mind of someone who lacked that information, enlightens. Like, a sunbeam vectored off a mirror enlightens unknown voids.

LINKS accessing internet information is a different device yet demonstrating the same result in a MEANING of life: Sharing awareness of our environment and of ourselves together in it.

You and me and everyone around us, Steve, are aware of massmedia in our environment. (Perhaps massmedia is the totality of some folks' awareness of the environment, where they dwell, seeking MEANING.) Accordingly, a 'small piece of broken mirror,' (click HERE: MediaMatters.ORG), shows a daily laser beam spotting the lies and factual errors and contamination information being tossed around in the massmedia part of our world, environment.

The false statements on TV and by the AP are tainted pieces of information -- they darken thoughts instead of enlighening -- and such massmedia stains are good to know to avoid ... while seeking MEANING.

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Hey, Steve,

Some some yum yum summmmmmmerrr! Yes, what? Lovin' this heat, I yam I yam. Transports me back into years of my youth, one of the boys of summer, in Eastern Oregon's scorcher skillet. The best part is (for the stargazers among us) not having the perpetual Willy-Valley overcast means getting to watch the moon and stars go 'round.

So I'm looking at photos here. Judging by the top-most and bottom-most and the spectrum spread in between, it's my hunch you could like this blog:

Bats: Left / Throws: Right

[ or Copy'n'Paste this URL: http://doghouseriley.blogspot.com/ ]

Fair warning before the hasty mouse-click: Riley (the blogger) is NOT talking baseball, much, and IS talking politics, a lot -- in Left and Right terms.

I don't quite get it, but I think it means when he "bats left" he is on offense, he advances his 'side' and he scores his points through the 'leftist' vantage point. Whatever "throws right" means, I'm not sure. Maybe it is something about being on defense, stopping the right-wing goofball-ness -- as in 'throwing rightists for a loop' or '... for a loss' -- throwing rightists Out trying to steal Home or bases or whatever unearned 'runs' rightists try to stretch for beyond competence and skill set.

I have not read the blog fully, only skimmed through the headline topics he chooses, and sped through a few paragraphs for the flavor of his writing style ... a flavor I like. However, I've seen enough to advise anyone going in there with no mental game good enough for the Bigs, and tossing typical right-wing puny platitudes or stupid spitballs, should expect to be sent to the showers because the dude's level swing gets some wood on the ball and parks it way over the upper deck. ... last seen headed for the clouds as it's fading out of sight.

Well, I don't know much about the political spectrum of it, I just really like to play in the baseball metaphor. Let's play two. Say, hey.

There was an item earlier this week which offers all us youngsters a view of the society and social sensibility when baseball became integrated, when 'negroes' were allowed to sign major league contracts. (Was it Branch Rickey who removed the racist barriers to Jackie Robinson?) Baseball 'purists' (maybe rhymes with 'racists') sort of screamed bloody murder, but the guy in charge just did it, brandished the pen (mightier than the bat) and said, 'let 'em in. Play ball.'

So this item (LINKed below) is about the Army, in the 1940s, surveying soldiers and officers for their opinions about serving in the same squads -- showering together, bunking together, dining together -- with 'negroes.' And get this: They did a second survey at the same time asking the same questions, but replacing the label 'negroes' with the label 'jews.'

Someone retrieved the actual pages of the (1948?) Army report, showing the number of service personnel sampled and the percentage answers -- scaled 1 to 5, 'strongly oppose,' 'somewhat oppose,' 'neutral,' 'somewhat favor,' 'strongly favor' -- for each question. The main (statistically significant) finding was that the less educated the military man, the more he opposed integration, and, the more educated the man, the less he opposed integration.

But get this: Truman didn't pay the slightest sniff of notice to what the servicemen said. He simply and directly ordered that the military begins integration. So ordered. Whoever had a problem with that could buck it up the line to him and he'd stop the buck there. Suck it up, salute and serve, soldier.

Today's topic in a similar context is the question of repealing DADT, (the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that the Pentagon officially put in place regarding gays about 1981, twelve years before Congress and Clinton rubber-stamp enacted it into law). This summer, stalling stalling stalling, the Pentagon is surveying troops for their opinions -- 'strongly oppose' ... 'strongly support' -- while Obama can simply and directly sign his name and make it happen any time he's ready to step up to the plate.

See here: EXCLUSIVE: New Docs Show Truman Integrated Forces, Despite Military Objections

(or Copy'n'Paste this URL: http://thinkprogress.org/2010/07/22/dadt-docs/ ]

Or just in general, we can all try to keep up: http://ThinkProgress.org

There ya' go. Deja vu all over again.

It ain't whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game. When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

Ms. Moody, do you believe the US 'wall' against Mexico will come down in our lifetime?

How about the Zionist 'wall' against Arabs, will we see it come down? (Distinguishing here between Zionist and Israeli, in a manner similar to distinguishing between Texan, say, and American.)

I agree, btw, and ever since Gabriel blew his horn -- "something there is that does not love a wall." ... one wonders 'why, how, what, where, who' wastes our tax dollars and resources to make walls these days when our technology can see through, over, and above them.

(Also, I believe the 'walls' are coming down, as soon as everyone understands the waste and shame of the wall builders, and we on Earth make it known together we are not going to tolerate such racist bigotry.)

Y'know, I have a few thoughts from reading this, Steve -- which is very good IMO -- and these thoughts start at some connection point in your 'sharing' and then go off at various tangents.

For instance, there was an incident not long ago when two girls were killed 'on their way home' from the place where my daughter would have been (and perhaps accompanied them walking) except that I interceded and told her she couldn't go there ... because I 'had a feeling' of a 'disturbance in the force' that night.

Second, sorta related: I 'feel' the ambient 'vibrations' around me, where I go, what I'm aware of. It is just some 'sense' I can't explain and I've always felt; being attuned to it has carried me into danger and safely out in the nick of time during more events than I can count. I believe everyone has such a 'sense' to some extent -- animals seem to have it, so primal it is -- and there is scant or no presentation, discussion, or 'training' of it in our culture, (where cursory illusion out-ranks substantive merit). In my advice to my daughter (and son) growing up, I emphasized 'training' their sense of trouble in the wind, stirring a 'hunch,' an untoward or inappropriate 'behavioral tic' and such prescience as provides for judge of character and to form those judgments and act on them and yet remain aware to revise and update judgment with new understanding, and so on, much MORE than I tried to 'train' her responses for all the different sorts of close situations or dangers there are to encounter. The best remedy for trouble is prevention or pre-emption, not 'practice at it.'

There's more connected with all you said, Steve. But ... forefend.

Hasselhof and the talking car, I forget the name of that send-up, and it was TV not a movie.

The Flubbermobile, in Disney's 'Absent-Minded Professor' (Fred MacMurray?) ... or was it 'Son of Flubber'?

Thelma and Louise?
The Blues Brothers?
(TIC ALERT - tongue in cheek)

... and then, when you do have a WORD to convert to NUMBER, you could misdial it, Steve. tsk tsk

LOVE converts to 5683 (the character 'O' (oh) is not the numeral '0' (zero))

I convert many phone numbers to words for my own amusement ... and better remembering. For examples, the 5683 converts to other words such as:
LOUD (excessive, as this religion-flogging uber-righteous group sounds to me),
LOUF (as in LOL),
KNUD (as in dried krud),
JOVE (as in the jovial 'namesake' of JOKE),
KOUF (as in ducking the question about {ahem ...cough, cough} their aims)
KNUF (no mas, nuff said)

Any one of which is more (than 'LOVE') likely to stick in my memory as description I associate with such an "outfit."