Marcus Aurelius MEDITATIONS I.11 “Fronto helped me to see how privilege and power breed malice, deceit, and hypocrisy and how often those whom we call ‘Patrician’ lack natural human feeling.”
The Hicks & Hicks translation, not my favorite but I like that turn of phrase.
When my kids were small I always felt like I was moving through the world like the personal assistant of a celebrity.
A brown tabby cat is lying on a grey pillow on a gaming chair
#FuzzyRebelAlliance #Caturday chair warming service
yes, very much this.
Trump is morally unfit for office. He is evil and that makes him irrational, not the other way around.
Birds! Flowers! Small snake!! Please join me for a two minute spring walk with a magical soundtrack of birdsong and toads trilling
#birds 🌿 🐡 🧪 #herps
I didn't see this in time -- is there any way to see it now?
I gave a talk at conference a couple of years ago, and to my everlasting disappointment, the organizers wouldn't let me call it "Don't Screw This Up Because Killing People Is Bad For Business", which I thought was much catchier than what I ended up calling it 🤷🏼♀️
Golf dad just introduced a video with “oh hi Goths, gays, ghouls, and theys“ in a semi Midwestern accent and I feel like that’s how I’m going to start entering every room now
I rode a ski lift with a guy who growled to his friend "Name me one positive thing the government has ever done" and I said (yes, I butted in) "The internet?" He didn't believe me, lol.
A brown glazed fabric with a decorated shoulder connextion
Raincoat, late Edo Period, 1790–1800
other people who remember the 1980s, a memory check: there was a lot more dogshit, right? people picked up way less
Orange and white cat says, "good morning Gonzobongos! Happy Caturday!"
Goodemorning Gonzobongos! Habby Caturday!
Tuplips! Tulipipis!!! Tulips!!!
More multicolored tulips!!!
And now for my favorite part of traveling…getting completely lost and cooing like a weirdo at street flowers.
A fluffy black cat curled up clockwise into a fluffy circle with tail tucked. Barely visible are a paw, an ear, part of face. Cat is atop a rainbow soft blanket and is adorable asleep. The photo is taken from directly above at a height of approximately one foot.
I am fortunate this meeping jackass was still at the animal shelter that day in November.
I like @cherylrofer.bsky.social’s thought: that Poseidon didn’t jump into everyone’s arms & cheek-mark them but he did with me (I WAS CHOSEN!).
He is such a Good Cat and so soothing to pet.
Grey cat named Mr. Jekyll stares accusingly at the camera as he stands beside a miniature orchid
No one does a judgmental stare like a cat. Even if you don’t know why you’re being judged. In fact, maybe that’s the point! #caturday
A reminder that the literal *opposite* of whatever Donald Trump (and his GOP enablers) say is usually true:
A deep red and yellow cup shaped flower that hangs downwards from a thick stem. It has multiple leaves that have lots of love and hides the flower. From Wikipedia: The bisexual flowers are cup-shaped, 2–3 cm (0.79–1.18 in) when open, nodding, and are set individually at the tip of a branching stem, and bloom for 9–15 days. Flowering occurs from March to June (mostly mid-April to mid-May). The five or six overlapping sepals are a purplish green, cupped, and oval or almost circular, persist after flowering. The five to ten circular petals are usually shorter than the sepals, and grade in colour from brownish-maroon at the base, via wine red to greenish or yellowish on the edge. Each flower has 60-100 yellow stamens, consisting of filaments of 3–5 mm, that are topped by anthers of 2–4 mm long. These open in succession from the inside out shedding yellow pollen, starting from the second day. A disc consisting of about twelve fleshy cone-shaped greenish-yellow lobes of 2.5-3 mm high surrounds the two to six (mostly five) glabrous, initially yellow-green to ultimately yellow-red carpels, each having a short style topped by a curved stigma that forms a ridge. These are receptive during the first two days that the flower is open.
A deep red and yellow cup shaped flower that hangs downwards from a thick stem. It has multiple leaves that have lots of love and hides the flower. From Wikipedia: The bisexual flowers are cup-shaped, 2–3 cm (0.79–1.18 in) when open, nodding, and are set individually at the tip of a branching stem, and bloom for 9–15 days. Flowering occurs from March to June (mostly mid-April to mid-May). The five or six overlapping sepals are a purplish green, cupped, and oval or almost circular, persist after flowering. The five to ten circular petals are usually shorter than the sepals, and grade in colour from brownish-maroon at the base, via wine red to greenish or yellowish on the edge. Each flower has 60-100 yellow stamens, consisting of filaments of 3–5 mm, that are topped by anthers of 2–4 mm long. These open in succession from the inside out shedding yellow pollen, starting from the second day. A disc consisting of about twelve fleshy cone-shaped greenish-yellow lobes of 2.5-3 mm high surrounds the two to six (mostly five) glabrous, initially yellow-green to ultimately yellow-red carpels, each having a short style topped by a curved stigma that forms a ridge. These are receptive during the first two days that the flower is open.
A Browns Peony from this morning’s hike. Why so shy with such extraordinary beauty?
Browns or Native or Western Peony
(Paeonia brownii)
🌿
Thank you all for a very restful #ParshaChat In These Trying Times, Rabbi & Biskies! Shabbat Shalom, Shavuah Tov!
Yes. This article, in talking about healing a person with tzaraʿat, mentions the same items & how they're used to exorcise demons. It's been a big deal, you need a ritual to give everyone the satisfaction of knowing it's OVER #ParshaChat
www.thetorah.com/article/tzar...
A3: So maybe the lesson here is to really think about how there might be a way to reduce the burdens on people if we want them to self-report, and to reduce the risks people need to take in order to do something important more generally? #ParshaChat
I'm flinging my hands up at the notion, myself! but how else do you explain it?
#ParshaChat
I know that priests and rabbis all the way through to the early 20th C have fought a *constant* battle between their teachings, which say "there are no demons, only Hashem" & the people, who say "everyone knows there are demons, give us something to fight them"
#ParshaChat
*exactly*!! Or, that no-one really expects the impurity to get into the household goods, needing to purify them is just ... ritual supererogation. I wonder if there are Babylonian rituals about removing demons from a house, & if this might be related ...
#ParshaChat
Letting people take out ceramic household goods, which can't be purified, only destroyed, is humane thing to do--IF everyone really agrees in their hearts that tzaraʿat isn't a poison that can spread to household goods, purifying them is just a ritual formality.
#ParshaChat
#ParshaChat And then I found this article: about how priest/rabbis determine ritual reality.
I think that's why you say "*Something like* a plague" -- you're not a priest! Your saying doesn't make it so!
www.thetorah.com/article/prie...
Q1 The first thing that jumped out at me is that you, the householder, get your stuff out of the house *before* the priest gets there to declare whether things inside it are pure/impure. So, the things you take out beforehand don't have to be purified!
#ParshaChat
A0 Dr Science here, on time for #ParshaChat for once. been having a lot of trouble w/ my back, & the weather roller-coaster has been really bugging me. hoping this will give me a good focus for a bit.
The paloverde are at it again!
One of my favorite native trees. The greenway trail is LOADED with them so everything is very yellow right now lol
🌿🌟
Galaxy siphonophore @schmidtocean.bsky.social dive 903 #DesigningtheFuture3 #MarineLife
The original book is actually a lot of fun, but they’re breaking out a French political prisoner.
