Augustus, My Sponsor.

Augustus, My Sponsor.

Augustus was baptised in August 2021 in Kastav Croatia at Sveta Jelena. Grateful, I promised the young priest that upon my return to New York, I would embark upon the process to be baptised myself, with Augustus as my ostensible Sponsor. I joined the St Ignatius Loyola Church catechumen process.

“We cannot attain the presence of God because we’re already totally in the presence of God. What’s absent is awareness.” ~Richard Rohr, OFM

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Quotable: Carey Smith

in

INC. Magazine:  Did you have any misgivings about selling to private equity?

Carey Smith:  “The thing about private equity investors is that they all say the same thing: ‘We really respect what you've done. We want to continue growing it, because we want you to be proud of it.’ But they have an interest in making a return. There's nothing wrong with that--it's just a different type of business. They're bankers. The most boring people in the entire universe. It's like if you went to the undertaker and you were picking out a casket, and they were trying to convince you that they really care about your afterlife. Give me a break. You're just putting people in the ground.”

To my friend, the Nihilist

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Perhaps, my friend, it is true, that humans are a pestilence. Perhaps Earth is the latest in a string of planetary conquests. We have absconded, like so many locusts, from one planet to another. Leaving destruction and pollution in our wake, a consequence of our wanton and profligate consumption. And we repeat that mistake in perpetuity, including today as I write.

Alternatively, we can close our eyes, find peace, and, if lucky, someone with whom the vibrations of Life and Love resonate, have children and cultivate our progeny to bend the world differently.

W

This is an excerpt of an erstwhile debate with a friend, a devout nihilist, who eschews commitments given the impending doom of mankind.

Dragojevic and Sinatra

If it should so happen that the Reader finds himself/herself in the Mediterranean in June, Wayne Weddington will perform a concert devoted to Love, expressed in principal by the love songs of the beloved Dalmatian singer Oliver Dragojevic and the inimitable Frank Sinatra, two of the masters.  Dubrovnik, Croatia, June 16 2018.

Mr Weddington will perform in both English and Croatian (Dalmatian, to be exact!).  Le Petit Festival du Théâtre is an an annual celebration of The Arts and the Global Community,  bringing  together artists and the fans of art-and-science from around the world.  This year, 2018, the festival is a tribute to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Croatia.   (http://bit.ly/2JaW6Qf)

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Mr Wayne Weddington is a private Investor, Writer, Philanthropist, husband and, well, occasional crooner. 

Mr Weddington first became enamored with Croatia and its many regional cultures in 2004 with his first visit to Dubrovnik to visit the WarPhoto Museum, founded by an erstwhile New York BFF Frederic Hanrez. Mr Weddington is devoted to music as a conduit of communication, in all of its genre. And in that spirit, and the inspirations of Le Petit Festival, offers his first public performances in the Croatian language as an expression of love and global community.

Mr Weddington is in development of a collaborative ecosphere, the IamYou Project, organized to foster mutual joy and understanding through conversation and respectful discourse, an increasingly lost medium corrupted by the anonymity of technology and social media.

The central purpose promotes listening, artistic expression and basal understanding between strangers across the globe. It has a Name. And it is Love. Mr Weddington is married to his Croatian Muse, Gabrijela, and currently resides in New York.

A Man's Perambulation

 

To be a man can be a daunting walk of spiritual solitude were it not for the camaraderie and empathy of like-minded men.

This Nick Galifianakis cartoon was originally published on February 24, 2016 for the Carolyn Hax advice column in The Washington Post and other syndicated newspapers. 

This Nick Galifianakis cartoon was originally published on February 24, 2016 for the Carolyn Hax advice column in The Washington Post and other syndicated newspapers. 

Galerie Bourseiller

Philippe Bourseiller travels the world in the tradition of the great adventurer-photographers, with a present-day environmental sensibility, even urgency.  His photographs record that which has been forever changed; indeed, many locations are now inaccessible or significantly altered due to climate change.  Mr Bourseiller's work is "a testimony to share, to reflect upon and to take action.” 

Mr Bourseiller 'observes' remote, sometimes dangerous, earth chambres into stunning works of art.  He implores Nature’s extremes and She responds with redolent fury: in volcanoes, in endless expansions of sand and ice and remote villages. He has documented change caused by the forces of nature, by global warming, by upheavals due to geopolitics and the results of pollution and deforestation in over one hundred countries. The goal is to create a record for future generations that he hopes will promote sensitivity to the plants, animals and human beings that have adapted to or been displaced by these transformations.

Mr Bourseillier is currently documenting the dramatic changes in the Earth's potable water sources for UNESCO:  97.5% of the water present on Earth is salt water. Only 2.5% is fresh water......  70% of the fresh water is frozen and the rest is buried in the deep phreatic layers of the Earth......  1.3 billion human beings do not have access to drinking water.....  The consumption of water increased 6x in the twentieth century.....  Agriculture absorbs 70% of the fresh water used.

Mr Bourseiller self-finances his critical work through the sale of museum-framed [3x]limited-edition large-format prints.  For inquiries click here or simply enjoy this small sample.  Detailed views here, password #<3Earth.

A Conversation About Reality

Two friends of mine had a conversation about transparency, privacy and Reality Winner.  Winner was arrested on June 3, 2017, on suspicion of leaking an intelligence report about Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections to the news website The Intercept. I 'overheard' this conversation and thought it was worth sharing. 

Point | Counterpoint

Is Reality Winner a hero?

I haven't read a ton into the document that she leaked. I guess it would all depend on whether one felt that the public had a right to know the information that the government was keeping secret. If so, she's a whistleblower. If not, she's a leaker. I don't think there should be a knee jerk reaction to something like this... there are certainly MANY things that the government is hiding to protect illegal, unethical or shady behavior... but that doesn't mean EVERY leak is legitimate. But having said that, I generally believe that the government is not transparent enough, so I'd probably say this was likely in the public interest. And what do you think, Sir?

I believe that Ms Winner is an irresponsible, mal-informed Millennial faux-victim who is about to learn the consequence of making an oath to the People and breaking it.

Reality, indeed.

Transparency is not a good unto itself. It is a fallacy to believe that abject transparency is best. The lack of transparency is why android is better than iPhone, Boeing makes a better jet than Airbus, or for that matter, any business is able to maintain a healthy profit margin.

Moreover, the People already do have full transparency by virtue of their elective representatives who perform at their service and their best interest -- neighborhood by neighborhood. That is why there are Intelligence Committees so that some representative from your neighborhood can assess and monitor confidential State secrets without compromising the integrity or well-being of the State (should such information get out).

It is not for some 24-year old knave to decide what is in the best interest of the People. And if she did become legitimately concerned, there were appropriate channels -- secure -- through which to express her grievances. The whole ecosphere of "nothing is private' if allowed to metastasize will be a destroyer of real and financial assets, let alone sovereign nations.

 

Appreciate the time and effort you put into this reply. However, it seems like you think that I was advocating unchecked transparency - I was not. More importantly, you are assuming that our elected representatives are acting in our best interest, and there are *countless* examples where they have not and most of those involve hiding behind confidentiality and 'national security'. Ed's disclosures just happen to be the most glaring example of that.

Some choice quotes:

'The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.'' - Patrick Henry, American colonial revolutionary.

'Government ought to be all outside and no inside. . . . Everybody knows that corruption thrives in secret places, and avoids public places, and we believe it a fair presumption that secrecy means impropriety.' - Woodrow Wilson

'The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.' John Fitzgerald Kennedy

And one for fun:

'It's not me who can't keep a secret. It's the people I tell that can't.' ― Abraham Lincoln

 

funny.... :-).....  should we all know the nuclear codes?

nope.

 

whew.  ok so we agree there is a threshold......  and I believe we could also agree that that threshold should not be determined by any random person.

Instead the responsibility of, ahem, transparency should be endowed to a person chosen by the People...

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of course not. it's determined by the courts. but a person who believes that impropriety is happening and that the chain of command explicitly values hiding that impropriety has no choice but to go public. it's after that occurrence, that the judgement is made.  and often times, it's only with some amount of time/distance and historical context does that become obvious.

Ellsberg was considered by many to be a traitor and a leaker. He was vindicated by the courts and is now fairly consistently understood to be a patriot.

It is determined by the courts only when there is disagreement regarding the propriety of the Constitution.... the responsibility is otherwise endowed to the People's representatives.  Those guys from your neighborhood whom you and your neighbors sent to Washington to represent your interests.

And, it appears that we agree that the courts decide the 'appropriateness' or legality of a leak, and on this the courts have been certifiably unambiguous.  Note that Snowden, (Chelsea) Manning, and Winner are, each, either indicted, convicted, or on-the-run.  Indeed, in these matters I do believe in the Courts' judgment.

We must then agree to disagree.

.