The Observer has a post up on a book called Abandoned New York.  I went to search the Grossinger Resort, and found quite a few blogs on it, including the author’s, plus this flickr link.  I’ve seen the Catskills in passing through on my own little Odyssey, circa 2007, and was enamored with their beauty.  Actually, I shouldn’t even be here, if my trek through the mountains hadn’t produced a surreal experience — I had $10 to my name, nowhere to stay for the night, so I drove around, lost.  It was 2 a.m., I fell asleep at the wheel, and was approaching a curve in the road.  I should have gone over the edge, but something jolted me awake, and I turned the car just in time.  Like I said, I think when I finally pass, my Guardian Angel is going to ask for some time off. 🙂

Anyway, I look at the photos of the abandoned property and sigh at those times and what has been lost.  Not that I think excess is the way to go, but that in those days nearly everyone had a decent paying job and the economy was doing well, and there were great places like this where one could go to enjoy themselves.  There was a sense of community.

On the flip side, I see the ferns and I am once again enamored at Mother Earth for continuing to renew and take back the structures.  A landscape architect told me once that if  land has been plowed for a farm or a housing development or a factory, that if you let it alone, it will return to a forest once again.  I have looked at things from that perspective, and find that it is true.  Nature continually tries to heal the “open sores” of our handiwork.

The author calls the Grossinger resort eerie.  I guess so.  But I also see life renewing itself.

(This post is on spirituality, so if it’s not your thing…)

Love this guy.  As others have stated- watch your back.  You’re going up against people whom have lost all sense of God and spirituality — whom enjoy feeling superior to others and take every opportunity to put someone down.  And then kick them while they’re down there.

“Even today it can happen that we stand at the crossroads of these two ways of thinking,” the pope said as he outlined the current debate in the church between those seen as doctrinal legalists and those, like Francis, who want a more pastoral approach.

“Jesus responds immediately to the leper’s plea, without waiting to study the situation and all its possible consequences,” Francis declared. “For Jesus, what matters above all is reaching out to save those far off, healing the wounds of the sick, restoring everyone to God’s family. And this is scandalous to some people!”

“Jesus is not afraid of this kind of scandal,” the pontiff continued. “He does not think of the close-minded who are scandalized even by a work of healing, scandalized before any kind of openness, by any action outside of their mental and spiritual boxes, by any caress or sign of tenderness which does not fit into their usual thinking and their ritual purity.”

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Word.  Jesus threw the bankers out of the Temple, along with the merchants.  He made the religious leaders look bad, and for that he paid with his life.  He thumbed his nose at them, radical that he was.

There’s quite a debate amongst the commenters.  I like the gal that replied she was Buddhist, and even she loves Pope Francis. Ahhh…she recognizes the Light inside him, as Buddhists do. (American Buddhists believe that God resides in all of us, instead of a Supreme Being, they believe that we all have a piece of Divinity within us. When they bow and say “Namaste” they are saying “I recognize God within you.”   Amy Tan has said in one of her books that Chinese Buddhists are different than American.  They believe in reincarnation in that you come back to “pay” for your sins in a former life.  She relates this to American tourists whom objected to an ox being whipped.  The Chinese tour guide said that perhaps this ox was a person who did bad things in a previous life.)

Personally, I don’t believe that God (or the Universe) punishes.  I think it is something that those who want power use it as a weapon — to say that something bad happening to someone is punishment from God, they can proclaim themselves as superior.    It’s a bullying mindset. And dark. And negative.  None of those things can come from God, in my opinion.

It also makes the person out to be judge.  But only God can do that.  It’s really amazing how many people try to put themselves on the level of God — to say who is going to Heaven and who is not.

Anyway, I’m glad the Pope has taken such a strong stance.  Truly a spiritual man feeding the Light.  ❤

More on the Hoosier front –Indiana OPT OUT is having a rally tomorrow at the Capitol.

…among other things. SJR 12 is all about their rights…and nobody else’s, including the animals.  Animals should be respected as they give us life, but we treat them as if we give them life!

This, along with forbidding animal rights activists the right to record animal abuse, is too, too much.  You can see the influence of the Tea Party here — all about corporate farming, not about the people OR about small family farms OR about sustainable practices.

Next, we have HB 1351 that seeks to put a stranglehold on environmental regulations.  First day on the job, Pence signed this –Koch head that he is…..

I believe we should make a distinction between Repubs who don’t believe in this stuff and the Daniels and Pences of the state who only care about furthering their own agendas and own careers, at the expense of not only the state, but the country…..so perhaps we should just go ahead and call it the Koch party?  Koch brothers would hate that because they’ve tried sooo hard to remain under the radar…

And, finally, HB1320, which tries to thwart any efforts by Hoosiers towards renewable energy.

Our state has such beauty to it — especially our state parks, which are like moving back in time in Indiana before the Native Americans were forced out.  The beauty and serenity cannot be bought…and cannot be replaced, a la cutting down timber and then planting a few trees in its place.

We have so much to lose in this power grab by the Kochs.  The article on the Hoosier Environmental Council website fails to acknowledge the 17 million pounds of toxins flowing into our waterways every freaking year…and BP dumping mercury into Lake Michigan every freaking year, and the Whiting refineries…and the PCBs in the local river, which is also subject to mercury due to discharge from a local factory…the Wabash is already so polluted that there are those who say it is beyond help….I could go on…

We have so much to lose and only a few will gain by the above bills.  Hoosiers need to stand up against this –our children and grandchildren deserve that.

Abby Zimet thankfully has a post up on Fifty Shades of Grey and the truth behind this movie.  I won’t see it as I’ve seen the glorification of hurting women (porn) during the 60s and 70s, where women were given this line that sex was “freeing” and that they were “repressed” so they needed to become uninhibited and have sex with many men.  Only it didn’t quite work out that way…as wise women came to realize that it was the men benefiting from this mindset, and the women ended up used and abused.

It’s really the opposite of the line women were told —  empowerment is in not having sex.  She gets to decide with whom and when or not at all.  Like the photo to the right by the feminist father –her body, her rules.

I think this film is a dangerous “next step” to legitimizing brutality towards women.  Not that it’s not condoned, if by silence if nothing else, but this is putting it in the mainstream….numbing those seeing it to the violence.  Once you’re numb to violence, it makes it easier to commit–as we have seen with violent video games.

I’ve lived through this increasing violence towards women put out in the mainstream, and it scares the hell out of me.  It’s the gradual acceptance of women as objects to do something to.

To illustrate this, when I was at the university, my emerging technologies (why is it always the techies?) professor got up in front of these impressionable 18-22 year olds and told them to invest in pornography….because they know how to make money.  He seriously said that.  The fact that he felt perfectly comfortable saying something like that, along with other professors saying and doing things that were sexually overt, leads to the conclusion that porn has become socially acceptable, even though it clearly demeans women (and men).  This is not a positive expression of sexuality.   Nor of respecting women as human beings.