The instinct for mimicry (of endless use) is powerfully influential and widely unrecognized, even as people engage in it, while rationalizing each morphological tug or shift or phase as some kind of noble cause, nationalist crusade, new relationship rush, ethnic clash, corporate back-scratching, emulation of hyper-masculine (therefore insecure) authoritarian ideologists, or just having fun at a party while engaging in drunken wittery and pun-upmanship, or doing a musical jam.

It also factors into innumerable systemic innovations and malfunctions, from quantum physics to solidarity for/against bullying in high school, to weaponized lone wolves unleashing terror upon demographically targeted segments of society, to all forms of addiction and casual cruelty, to bait-and-switching sociopathic human-traficking gangster cabals. Mirroring is fundamental to a comprehensive understanding of or species. How much time have we given it?

It's weird how long-past incidental things have been codified as traditional norms, which everyone was expected to follow in order to earn 'credentials'. One example: musical notation.

Modern music production software often uses much more intuitive and easy to follow methods of visualizing music. Outdated notation is extremely difficult to learn because it was developed as a highly compact way representing notes in time, *for the time*. On paper, it was efficient. They didn't have graphics to make it easier on the eye and less confusing. As everyone who has contemplated being a professional musician through classical training knows, who decided it was just too much rigor and the notation was too hard to drill in the brain, there was just a visceral feeling that the notation was *wrong* and the rigor not right for musical brains.

There are reasons for it. Cognitively, musical notation and the classical structure of drill and training are off-putting (even viscerally painful) for most musical brains. Fortunately that is now moot because of better visualization formats that are software-based. The only issue is, do schools allow alternative visualizations in lieu of traditional notation? Or do they penalize those who cannot handle the archaic formatting?

Another example: the national anthem, written by a slave-owner who gloried in war, and various other cynically employed rituals of patriotism, . Do those who cannot conscionably display reverence for the ritual (which to the mainstream emotionally symbolizes unity and victory but has so much blood-tainted history in light of the fourth dimension) deserve to be hurdled by mass stigma, death threats or intimidation through loss of income?

So many hurdles, so little time.

I know some of my Bernie buddies are focused on Hillary's negatives, but before you make your final decision, please please please read the full text of Donald Trump's 'Values Voters' speech to the religious right. He has promised to fill Supreme Coutprt slots with anti-abortion judges, and previously he said women should be punished for having an abortion. If you want to know who wants to own your womb, it's this guy. Please read it. It matters.


http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/full-text-trump-values-voter-summit-remarks-227977

As we argue, Chelsea is doing her best to change Ivanka's mind. Their friendship is the greatest hope we have. The other day, Ivanka quoted Emma Watson quoting another source, and Emma Watson is a feminist. No one in trump's camp would reference a feminist like Emma Watson. It came from Chelsea. Chelsea is a feminist. This is good. (Cue conspiracy theories about the two candidates in the most brutal and potentially lethal election with accusations of treason and blood libel being in cahoots. Because that's how you'd tag-team in a country full of guns and mental health crises).

Abortion rights matter. Please read Donald Trump's 'Values Voters' speech to the religious right, in light of several Supreme Cort openings being filled by the next President of the United States.

The Tao is funny... at this time, I'm seeing the corporate establishment and the Democratic party very positively, and I've never been one to get involved with any sort of authoritarian structure because it doesn't fit my ADD. Their incentives are mostly aligned with Tao, while many idealists unwilling to compromise based on personal experiences (which are TOTALLY valid, many anti-Hillary people have Boomer issues and I would too if forced to 'act like an adult' as Boomers are wont to say) are wasting energy denouncing her as a warmonger, Wall St. shill and wicked witch. Being an Xer with more of a 'use everything for the best purpose' mindset, I'd advise Millennial Xers to shit-meme the fuck out of Trump, see what Hillary does after the election and use Bernie and Stein's social capital (and some Libertarian voices) to ensure honesty and pressure for integrity in the DNC, as well as stacking Congress with Greens. This is just me. My sense of the Tao. I could just be too high to see reason. But this computes, and feels right. If wrong, will adjust strategy. And so it goes.

The Nutterfly Effect:

One bunker-ready End Times fundamentalist flapping his Bible-signs in small town Alabama can set off chain reactions that lead to a hurricane of alt-Right misogynist trolls rampaging at a Texas university.

Lockhart's Second Law of Logodynamics:

The longer a 'brand' remains unchanged, the more idiots and assholes take it over and make it look evil.

(First Law: Authoritarian Hierarchies Are The Devil*)

*See my Children's Guide Through A Demonological Garden of Sociopolitical Apparitions And Boogeymen.