SDC Questionnaire -- 06042024

 SDC Questionnaire — 06042024

Sitting quietly, reflecting on the state of our Republic.  The appearance of Donald tRump on our political scene has had unprecedented consequences for our nation.  I want to propose a few simple questions for Family Members and Friends who continue to hold the former President in high regard.

My questions are not tricks. They are part of a sincere effort to help dispel the fog that has descended on our national institutions.  Furthermore, I am truly interested in "what comes next,” as our national story unfolds.  I have limited my questions to 20 in hopes that many of you will respond.  I could easily add more.  As always, please abide by standards of reason and civility that I honor.  Written responses to these queries with supportive documentation, not conjecture or patently false information, will be welcomed.  If you prefer not to expose your answers to the world, feel free to post on my blog site -- https://samconti.blogspot.com/      Be well, each and all.  I truly look forward to reading your responses so we can go about “bind[ing] up our nation’s wounds." 

1.) What characteristics do you find admirable in the former president?

2.) Do you think is unusual that the former president has managed to expose defects unseen in our founding documents and in our 247-year history?

3.) Do you think that our law enforcement agencies and judicial mechanisms have been hopelessly corrupt over many years only to have the rot exposed by the former president/

4.) Do you find it strange that the former president has no meaningful acquaintance with our national history or international affairs?

5.) Do any of the unseemly interactions with people of questionable character both here and abroad cause you concern?

6.) Have any of the falsehoods that the former president has reputed to have uttered been questioned by you?

7.) Do you think that the former president and members of his family have dealt honestly in the nation’s interest?

8.) Do you truly believe that the former president has the right to keep classified documents and display them to unauthorized persons?

9.) Do you think that the former president and his associates engaged in unlawful conduct on January 6 and in the many attempts to disrupt the orderly transfer of presidential power by presenting fraudulent election certificates?

10.) Are you concerned by the evident hucksterism manifest in the former president's appeals for money and sales of various items, e.g., Bibles, trading cards, etc.

11.) Do you find the efforts to compare himself to Jesus Christ to be blasphemous?

12.) Do you think that right-wing lobbying groups had out-sized influence in the nomination of justices and judges of our federal judiciary/

13.) Are you concerned that the former president shows great attachment and admiration for right-wing despots around the world/

14.) Does it trouble you that the former Republican Party has yielded its honor and standing to the whims of a sect leader?

15.) Is the anti-science and environmental posture of the former president alarming to you?

16.) Do rounds of petty name-calling and spiteful behavior repel you?

17.) Did the former president in fact surround himself with none but the best when shaping his cabinet?

18.) Did cabinet members and political appointees of the former president prove to be sufficient guides and guardrails for someone who came into office with no government experience?

19.) Do you think the former president has been respectful of service men and women, especially those who gave their all for the American experiment? 

20.) Have the former president's relations with selected news media and social platforms caused you any level of alarm? 

Your responses are earnestly solicited.  SDC

Some thoughts

 Some thoughts from Sam Conti

Prologue -- by way of saying -- who gives a hoot what SDC thinks .  If that is where you are:  STOP READING THIS RIGHT NOW!!!  SDC

I wish that I could have greater knowledge, more empathy, better reasoning, and persuasive skills.  I would truly like to be able to help family members and friends who remain supporters of the former occupant of our Oval Office remove rhe scales from their eyes.  It is an especially onerous task I've set for myself for several reasons.  Among them: many of the folks with whom I disagree are relatives and lifelong friends; most were raised in  circumstances similar to mine, with common ethical and moral roots; most with the same work ethic by which I'm driven; many whom attended the same schools, colleges, universities, institutes; some who've worked shoulder to shoulder with me: building fences around playgrounds, trying to make courts work better, raising money for charitable purposes, consulting around the world to help achieve more just societies; most share similar burdens of family and economic and health lives; all would reach down to help a child, a wounded creature, an alien in a strange land; most are dedicated to the founding principles of our nation; many share common roots in the  Abrahamic faiths, some share world views tempered by faiths little known to me; all, I think, want to pass on to future generations a world of beauty, peace, and viability; most are curious and want the freedom to learn, read, experiment, teach.  

With a substrate of elements in common, what are the forces that challenge our abilities to act civilly and reasonably and with united accord as we try to build a better world and nation.  This incomplete catalog of like elements ought, when we act with good will, bring us together.  

Those who know me well are aware of some basic principles, lodestars, by which I try to live my life. I believe that: 

1.) No one has the corner on truth (of course that first principle undercuts all that follows if not understood generoslly.) 

2.) Life gives enough sorrow to us individually, we should not make life even harder for others 

3.) We must regularly examine and, if necessary, recalibrate our inner moral compasses 

4.) We ought to identify model individuals whose actions are worth emulating. 

5.) It is wise to decide upon a body of guideposts for your thinking and acting in the world.  (Mine were rooted in my mind and spirit and remain alive in me: they are summarized as faith, hope, and charity. Some tools useful to me have been the virtues taught to me as a child.  The fact is, I regularly miss the mark, but I have a standard against which to measure where I stand  

6.) We must do everything possible to dispel ignorance, further understanding, and render kindness.  

7.) Try to be decent folks.

8.) Value learning, critical thinking, the search for truth, reading, sweep away all efforts to limit the scope of inquiry and study. 

9.) Be humble and don't think you are always right and know all the answers 

10.) Go back to point 1 and try again in a spirit of good will.

I think that the former occupant of our Oval Office has acted corruptly and imperiled the future of our Republic. I believe he has conspired with media and entrenched monied interests to advance his own economic interests.  He continues to pollute core principles of democratic governance.  He has committed crimes and breeched ethical boundaries long respected by decent people. He has cynically adopted a mantle of faux Christianity to lure unwary believers into his folk.  He deploys tools and attitudes of despots throughout history to advance his malign agenda.  He whips crowds of his "believers" into frenzied and uncritical mob action aimed at sedition in our nation.

This abbreviated retailing of the awful misdeeds of tRump can be checked against accurate and truthful accounts of his deeds.  Only open-mindedness and patience are needed.  I hope the reader will marshal those talents.  

As always, civil and reasonable comments on the thoughts are welcomed.

Be well, stay safe each and all.  SDC 

04012023

Rosie, a New Member of the Society

 

Rosie, a New Member of the Society

                                        

Here we have another telling from the Annals of the St. Bee Kitty Rescue Society.  

We have a regular visitor to our Society headquarters, she is called “Messy Faced Mom.”  As best we can determine she comes around primarily to be impregnated by our resident inseminator, Stealth.  Their liaisons result, like clockwork, in three litters each year.  Both Messy Faced Mom and Stealth, hereinafter MFM & Stealth, respectively, are wily little folks.  They have over several years eluded all of our ruses to trap them.  Once we have them enrolled in the cadre of trapped, neutered, and released (TNR), we will all be happier.  Stealth is not sure he agrees with that.

In any event, MFM’s most recent parturition brought forth an unknown number of kittens.  MFM arrived on kitchen porch looking bewildered and put-upon.  We can only guess that her new offspring were demanding of nursing, cleaning, and comfort, and that she was having none of it.  We suspect that having birthed no fewer than seven kittens in previous litters in less than a calendar year, she was seeking her main chance to abscond from maternal duties.  Why not, she reasoned: Stealth, the impregnator, was sitting with no acknowledged parental duties at all.  He sits fat and happy overseeing the Meadow of likely paramours.  Well, MFM has had enough.  

MFM secretly aspired to a relaxing winter at the Society’s hearthside. She cautiously dreaded “Hav-a-Heart” trap.  Food, presented alluringly, overcame her maternal instincts and her flight drive, and she risked the trap.  As hoped (by us, not her), that contraption worked as designed and MFM was trapped.  

She was introduced to other cats in our home but was incarcerated in a crate large enough for me to fit, easily.  A cursory examination did not disclose whether she had recently given birth.  She refused to play along and show us her under parts.  She spent all of her time curled next to her litter box.  We were concerned that she may have some kittens squirrelled away in some secure, warm spot now that colder weather has arrived.  MFM would not make it easy for us.  We couldn’t open her crate and try to follow her to her nesting place.  Freed she would undoubtedly scamper off into the wood-lae sheltering our home.   She might be lost to us and more important to any kittens she may have birthed.  

The “Hav-a-Heart” trap was unshelved and redeployed at random spots around the meadow.  We had neither seen nor heard any new kittens.  Time would be running out on any little ones without proper shelter or food, if we had captured their mother.  The search intensified.  

We have plenty of hidey-holes nearby just made for kittens: a neighbor’s corn-crib or barn, another’s potting shed or beneath their new side porch.  It is surprising that across a usually quiet landscape, especially in cold clear weather, small sounds are discernible.  During a tour around a shed leaning against our neighbor’s barn, Shirley heard a tiny meow.  Carefully and quietly we opened the rusty-hinged door and peered into the cob-webbed space.  A passel of kittens, an undetermined number scampered away.  Calls and clicks unavailing, we decided to place the baited trap in the shed.  

The trap had to be disabled after dark because a kitten alone, untended would be exposed and afraid.  Early the next morning the trap was rearmed and additional food placed within and around.  We left for mid-day hours.  On our return one tiny kitten was madly careering around the metal mesh.  She was yowling, hysterical.  The trap was taken across the field and the edge of the meadow and into our home.  Our plan to place the little one in the crate with her mother went well.  Neither acknowledged or, presumably, recognized the other.

Other kitties in our home visited the crate, pawing at the new arrival.  Her reaction was neutral to them and to her mother.  

Shirley looked at MFM and told her that her newly saved kitty would be known as Rosemary.  We did not know the gender of Rosemary so Shirley has decided, with my assent, that we will call the kitty Rosie covering gender assignment from Rosie Rose to Rosie Greer.  

Rosie and MFM remain sequestered.  Shirley and I continue over twice daily visits to the rearmed trap.  New food and clean water are abundant.  We’re hoping that like last year when Stormy, aka BabyFace became part of our family, Rosie, her mother, and the rest of that little family will make our home, our society, theirs as well.

SDC

Thanksgiving Weekend

November 26, 2021

Entelechy — Folks have asked me for a definition of the title of this blog, SDC — defined — "entelechy, n.". OED Online. December 2020. Oxford University Press. https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/62796?redirectedFrom=entelechy (accessed December 23, 2020).

entelechy, n.

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Pronunciation: 

Brit. Hear pronunciation/ɛnˈtɛləki/

, 

Hear pronunciation/ᵻnˈtɛləki/

, 

U.S. Hear pronunciation/ənˈtɛləki/

, 

Hear pronunciation/ɛnˈtɛləki/

Forms:  Also 1600s entelechie,  entelech; 1500s in Greek form  entelecheia; 1600s–1800s in Latin  entelechia.(Show Less)

Frequency (in current use):  Show frequency band information

Etymology: < Greek ἐντελέχεια, <  ἐν + τέλει, dative of τέλος perfection + ἔχειν to have.

Philosophy.

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 1. In Aristotle's use: The realization or complete expression of some function; the condition in which a potentiality has become an actuality.

1603    J. Florio tr. M. de Montaigne Ess.  ii. xii. 314   Aristotle..calleth [the soul] Entelechy, or perfection mooving of it selfe.

1652    J. Smith Select Disc. x. 500   Wickedness is the form and entelech of all the wicked spirits.

1656    T. Stanley Hist. Philos. II.  vi. 69   The soul is the first entelechie of a naturall organicall body, having life potentially.

1837    W. Whewell tr. Aristotle in  Hist. Inductive Sci. I. 57   The Entelechy, or act, of a moveable body.

1842    Sir W. Hamilton in  Reid's Wks. I. 202/2 (note)    Aristotle defines the soul, the Form or Entelechy of an organized body.

1850    F. D. Maurice Moral & Metaphysical Philos. (ed. 2) I. 194   Motion is the entelechy (the perfecting power or principle) of the potential as potential.

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 2. In various applied senses (apparently due to misconceptions of Aristotle's meaning):  (a) that which gives perfection to anything; the informing spirit;  (b) the soul itself, as opposed to the body.

1603    S. Harsnett Declar. Popish Impostures 5   When his Holiness the King of Spaine and Parsons theyr Entelechie were plotting beyond the seas.

a1652    J. Smith Select Disc. (1660) iv. viii. 107   He seems to make it [sc. the soul] nothing else..but an Entelechia or Informative thing.

1652    T. Urquhart Εκσκυβαλαυρον 112   The purest parts of the separated entelechies of blessed Saints.

1659    J. Shirley Honoria & Mammon  i. i   Soul..that bright entelecheia Which separates them from beasts.

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 3. The name given by Leibniz to the monads of his system.

1877    E. Caird Crit. Acct. Philos. Kant Introd. v. 92   It is better to give the general name of monads or entelechies to those simple substances that have only perception.

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As readers will note, I have rarely used this medium to communicate with family and friends but have decided that now is a propitious moment to relaunch myself.  My intention is to post older and more current Facebook and other media materials I have written.  I intend to be respectful of the privacy of those with whom I’ve exchanged opinions and information.  I hope this forum and format will enable those who are interested in my thoughts to reflect on and to object to them.  For your reading delectation, I submit:

The Virtual Nun

The Virtual Nun