Thursday
Thor’s Day. The God of Thunder. Wielder of Mjolnir. Son of Odin.
And a good day it was.

Song of the Day
Palm Sunday Downpour, Mr. and Mrs. Hammer and Without Roses or Charms by Hat

Stray Toasters

  • Today started and ended with me talking to the two youngest members of my sibko: Youngest sister and brother – Kris, this morning; Adam tonight. And, I got to play travel agent, again… couldn’t have Adam stranded in Oklahoma this summer. That just wouldn’t be “right.” Although, it might be funny.
  • It’s amazing how far we, as a country, have come in the past 220-something years. And how many times the adage “One step up, two steps back” can be proven true. Why do I say this? Read here. Welcome to 2003.
  • From salon.com:

    “K-Y Jelly, we hardly knew ye”
    http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2003/05/01/k_y/index.html
    The venerable lubricant with the kinky associations is getting a brand makeover. But will it be able to maintain market penetration?

    Oh, the joys of the double entendre.

  • I don’t do this often, so you might want to mark your calendars…

    Disclaimer: The following point refers to something that many know only as an offensive symbol. I want to present a counterpoint to that. In the middle of the 20th Century, the symbol was adopted and perverted into a sign of hatred and oppression which represented a 180° shift from its original meaning.

    That having been said…

    brought this little nugget of joy to my attention. Is it unusual that my first reaction was,”What about the original meaning and connotation behind the swastika?” I empathize with Rabbi Kermaier’s discomfort with seeing it on the figurine, but by the same token he is in a country in which a great number of the people (read: “Pretty much ALL…”) are Buddhist; sects of that faith use the classic -reversed and non-rotated- symbol with a positive meaning. For a somewhat similar argument, one could look to the “Heritage vs. Hate” debate over the use of the Confederate flag as part of southern states’ flags.

    I also think that it was noteworthy that, according to the article: “…the figurines were ‘exact replicas’ of characters featured in the television series.” It would be interesting to find whether anyone gone to he executives at the television studio and/or the creators of Robocon to protest the offensive design?

    Here is something that I found on this part of the indiayogi.com site.

    Question: What does the Swastika Symbol mean?
    A very famous solar symbol that has been used for luck and auspiciousness in India for millennia – and then Hitler got hold of it, reversed it, rotated it off its central axis and made it a hated and feared emblem of evil. There could be no greater irony and it is time the swastika was rescued and restored to its true stature.

    The word is derived from ’su vasti’ and means ’the essence of everything good’, a far cry indeed from the appalling perversion to which Nazi idiots twisted it. The swastika is common to the Hindu, Buddhist and Jain traditions equally; it was an Indian cultural archetypal symbol, not a sectarian mark. Hence its power and hence the disastrous energies released when it was reversed. A reversed swastika is used only on special occasions when there is some necessary clearing of Psychic clutter to be done and even then it is dangerous to keep it active for too long. The Nazis not only reversed it they tilted it and then put it in Tantrik colors. They were guaranteeing their own demise with such monkeying around with archetypes. The swastika however is a very pure and auspicious symbol in essence, a bringer of luck and fortune and it should not get a bad reputation because of some historical distortions. -Rohit Arya

    Here is more about it, including some of the history behind it.

And with that, good night.

Namaste.