What's on your iPod?

She was gorgeous, wow rip. Look at those eyes, how can you not believe in a Heaven, she had to go somewhere. Man, RIP, Kayla.
 
Somewhere between longing and loss, the mood of this thread this morning.....what to post....

Perhaps this will strike the appropriate chord.

 
Shogun said:
She was pretty decent looking, which asshole would bully her? Probably jealously...
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I find it interesting that several have commented on the appearance of the victim, as if that is the only criteria that contributes to bullying, as if looking a certain way is a protection against such action in some manner.

Often, the reasons for aggression are considerably more subtle than that, as in ideology differences or non-participation in activities that the victim may have been raised to consider unethical.

Jealousy is an interesting motivation and our species, like many of the animals, has a tendency to single out differences of any kind, which may be moving us toward the lowest common denominator rather than advancement.

I wonder if such aggression is actually on the increase or if it is the increasing population and the new instant communication mediums that gives us this sense.

Actually, we have been a fairly aggressive species since recorded history, and I would surmise prior to that also. We co-operate largely because it serves a purpose toward survival. We retain our individuality within the collective, yet somehow find it difficult to respect that trait in others.
 
scheherazade said:
I wonder if such aggression is actually on the increase or if it is the increasing population and the new instant communication mediums that gives us this sense.
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Aggression has been on the decrease for centuries. The murder rate in medieval European cities was something like a hundred times what it is today in cities trumpeted as murder capitals, like New York and Washington.

The only kind of aggression that hasn't been successfully damped is government violence. And even that has fallen precipitously since WWII. The body count in today's wars is so low that the newspaper can print the photos of all the individual victims. Even capital punishment has been outlawed in most modern countries: violence as an expression of revenge is rapidly falling out of fashion. The USA, where it's still practiced, is in great company with such bastions of freedom as China, Iran, Singapore, North Korea, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, etc., and even some of our individual states have abolished it.
Actually, we have been a fairly aggressive species since recorded history, and I would surmise prior to that also.
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In the Paleolithic Era, defined as the millions of years before the technology of agriculture was invented, there was no food surplus. So during a drought or other famine, the only way a tribe could survive was to make war on the tribe in the next valley and try to steal their hunting and gathering territory. We are pack-social predators by instinct and all pack-social predatory species behave this way. The few hundred generations since the development of agriculture created the first food surplus this planet has ever seen are not enough time for our instincts to evolve. There's still a caveman inside each of us. We bribe him with air conditioning, music, pizza, furniture, sportscars and a domesticated wolf who thinks he's God, but occasionally he has a bad day and reverts to Paleolithic behavior.

But notwithstanding all of those qualifiers, he really has become slowly more civilized as the millennia pass. We just have to be patient... and keep guns out of his reach!
We co-operate largely because it serves a purpose toward survival.
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Not just Survival. We're two or three steps past that on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Some of us are close enough to Self-Actualization to almost be able to tell the rest of us what the heck that means. ;)

We would never have gotten this far without civilization and we all know it, consciously or not. The first few generations of cavemen-turned-farmers figured it out and began inviting rival tribes to live in their villages, because division of labor and economy of scale made their farming and herding even more productive, so some of them could start doing cool stuff like becoming good singers, making wine and inventing new tools.
We retain our individuality within the collective, yet somehow find it difficult to respect that trait in others.
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Most of us are able to do that most of the time. Civilization has evolved its ways of keeping most of us from doing too much harm when we backslide. Our inner cavemen usually stop short of actually killing each other, except when a government or a church takes control and brings out the worst in us.
 
Here's a Rock and Roll take on a Christmas classic that looks like it's going viral.....

 
Epitaph

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...zozdBg&usg=AFQjCNGo5tysB1JhJ2ZLX1a8shlThQgixA


Epitaph lyrics

The wall on which the prophets wrote
Is cracking at the seams.
Upon the instruments of death
The sunlight brightly gleams.
When every man is torn apart
With nightmares and with dreams,
Will no one lay the laurel wreath
When silence drowns the screams.

Between the iron gates of fate,
The seeds of time were sown,
And watered by the deeds of those
Who know and who are known;
Knowledge is a deadly friend
If no one sets the rules.
The fate of all mankind I see
Is in the hands of fools.

Confusion will be my epitaph.
As I crawl a cracked and broken path
If we make it we can all sit back
and laugh.
But I fear tomorrow I'll be crying,
Yes I fear tomorrow I'll be crying.
 
cosmictraveler said:
Closing Time

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...y-C-Bg&usg=AFQjCNHXArWw2FikLQ35OvSlG1ofSqVeRQ
Click to expand...

Wow, Cosmic. Doesn't he look like Al Pacino?

images
leonard-cohen.jpg
 
The Scent of a Woman. Great flick! I do find a woman’s natural scent more seductive but studies have shown that the smell of cinnamon buns increase tumescence.

Maybe this is what you meant by feeding the male ego.
eat-drink-smiley-542.gif



 
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