1st day of Spring

[BlueTrain]

The wildlife is still there. Only this morning, I was sitting and looking out the dining room window and happened to notice four deer poking around, two inside the fence, two outside. They're easy to miss; they just blend right in. My wife and I watched for a few minutes until one started munching on something my wife didn't want eaten and said, "that's it."

As for my previously mentioned plans for some nude hiking next month, I'm starting to wonder if I'll do any at all. The trip itself may be exhausting and it would also mean having to stay another whole day and night. As the saying goes, "we'll see."

[Greenbare Woods]

It wasn't quite the first day of spring but it was the my first time out when it was warm enough to go out.  This is a tree behind my home. 

[eyesup]

. . . names were decided by a public poll which garnered 10,000 names including some extremely witty but excluded ones . . .

I suppose they nixed the clever, witty and humorous ones because they wouldn’t present the appropriate level of dignity to the serious job of attempting to guess what Mother Nature is up to.

It could also be that a name is easier to remember and speak than say, AH201823N (the 23rd hurricane in the Atlantic in the northern hemisphere in the year 2018). You could also add in tornadoes and which state they occurred etc. etc. It could get tedious. A name can make it personal especially if the storm took everything away from you.

The names used to be by LatLong, but I don't understand how as the dang things wouldn't hold still.

Your assertion carries some weight, John, though considering that the practice of naming hurricanes was modified from using only women’s names to include men, in 1978, I suppose to make the hurricanes feel better with regard to gender specificity.

Duane

[eyesup]

Reporting can be used as a political whip or club, depending on your intent. Since the invention of the printing press that has been the case with a probably only few exceptions in history. The old corporate news organizations were originally intended to be funded as a section of the company not dependant on revenue. With that in mind they could be a third party observer, as long as they verified their stories, without having to answer to anyone. Their integrity was generally respected.

Somewhere along the line that changed. The relevant aspect of that for us is that now that there are political agendas directing them they have the ability direct the discussion. It just means we have to work harder to get the whole story.

There is plenty of blame to go around among everyone involved.

Duane

[eyesup]

Thanks, BlueTrain. You have made me aware of my own temporal status.
I was aware that Will Rogers died in 1935, 83 yrs. ago. So his joke was longer ago than that.

75 I guess is long enough to include that time frame. For most though, it is too long to consider.

Duane

[eyesup]

Criminalizing individual behaviors, walking naked outside et.al., is usually the response when the rate of change begins to outstrip the ability to accommodate it.

But as long as we can maintain the process that we have to guide the country the way it was intended, the pendulum will swing back the other way. We have to rely on the best instincts of the people in charge. The government is too easily manipulated by political advantage.

I feel better about the private ownership than the news being regulated down to newspeak by the bureaucrats.

Duane

[eyesup]

We once had two separate newspapers here. One decidedly left and one leaning right. The left leaning paper was about to go belly up when the other one bought them out and started delivering a combined paper. This solved the problem that some complained about that there wouldn’t be a voice in this arena for the left.

The fact that that paper was failing because that market was not interested in the product they provided didn’t matter. What mattered was maintaining an appearance of equality. Though the right leaning paper benefited from acquiring all those customers that wanted the other paper, so everyone won in the end.

Duane

[BlueTrain]

Remember that "left" and "right" are merely degrees of deviance (bad word, I know) from the center. Conversely, the center is defined as the middle between the extremes, of which there may be more than two. The extremes sometimes come very close to one another in reality in terms of what they're willing to do to achieve their goals, since the scale is not a straight line. It's more like horseshoe-shaped, like a horseshoe magnet.

In the world of nudism, I'd describe the nudist club and resort types as conservative and the free beach people as the liberals. But then, there are all of the others who neither visit beaches, any beach, or belong to any club or visit resorts (because they aren't free) and may not have a place on the scale. In other words, they don't fit any convenient definition and I guess that includes me. But I suppose there are instances where group ideology isn't always consistent with some of the things they really want.

[John P]

The "right" and "left" designations fit roughly to the two U.S. naturist organizations, with the The American Association for Nude Recreation (AANR) representing the resorts and their patrons, and the Naturist Society (TNS) concerned with "public land nudity" as it's sometimes called. I'm in the Naturist Society, and I know JBGoode is too. We've both written for the society's magazine. AANR descends from the first German-influenced nudist group back in the 1930s, and TNS got started as an offshoot from the "Free Beach Movement" which was a product of the hippie era, and I think here at Freerangenaturism we're mostly inclined to the TNS side. But there actually is a fair amount of overlap between the two groups' areas of interest.

[jbeegoode]

Thar center is deviously shifted. The new center is the old right these days. The left is off of the charts. There is no real balance in the media.

There is a commonality, which is nudity. Old school conservative would be roped in and afraid of the outside world, like Glenn Eden Resort. I would be pretty much left of center, ready to destroy the very fabric of society. (I love stealing that) We're all on the same side, just different goals and strategies.

Then, there are nudists that think that it should be shut away and then those that think that it is an adult activity, keep the kids out of it. This trend continues all the way to prudes, which vary, too. So to me the relevant context is the nudes and prudes and then where is the centrist on that spectrum's equation?

Are we back to right and wrong and science, opposed to knee jerk thinking and moral impositions?
Jbee

[BlueTrain]

One person's conservative is another person's radical. I'd say the terms or labels that are generally used lag behind the behavior of those stuck with the labels.

In nudism, the old school conservative, who might actually be old, had his club where he was free from having to look over his shoulder to see if someone was bothered. He believed that only by maintaining a club-type arrangement could he have any outdoor nudity, free from legal harassment. And only by careful screening of membership applicants could a proper atmosphere be assured. Some allowed their clubs to drift towards adult-only membership, eventually turning into swinger clubs. That also happened overseas, lest you think that only Americans let that happen.

The other end of the spectrum, originating with the free beach movements (and perhaps with the streaking fad), wanted public nudity permitted on beaches, with a heavy emphasis on "free." There were some successes but basically the same problems existed but without any membership control and with more public disapproval. Nevertheless, there seems to be more public nudity now than ever, but probably with just as much disapproval as ever, too. Ironically, the original free beach crowd are mostly old now, too.

The left can't be off the charts, of course. Nor does the media require balance, real or otherwise. There's no section here for people who oppose nudity in any form, is there? Does the news today have stories presenting things the way the North Koreans or the Russians see things? And should they? I realize those are extreme examples but they aren't off the chart.

Mostly, though, I doubt that the different camps in nude recreation have the same goals, other that to be left in peace while they're not wearing anything. It's like comparing the RV (recreational vehicle or caravan) crowd with the ultra-light camping crowd. Yes, they both like camping but what they have in mind isn't the same. And most people don't care for camping in the first place.

Here I am writing in English and still have to translate some things.

Anyway, I don't think there is a moral side to any of this, although the anti-nudist assumes that all moral rectitude is on his side. We, on the other hand, assume that everybody else is a little hypocritical. But excluding children is a bad sign.

[eyesup]

BlueTrain, I was speaking specifically of left and right in a political sense, e.g. liberal and conservative. And I cherry pick’em all, because there are good and bad ideas on both sides. Adhering strictly to one or the other usually puts you in a bad spot or in the company of annoying people.

Morality has to be on the individual as a choice, it cannot be legislated. Laws should only address those moral actions that are agreed to be universal, life and liberty etc. We have discovered on more than one occasion that to try to legislate morality, results in bad decisions.

Duane

[nuduke]

Hey, Bob!
I'm afraid I've just skimmed all this left/right wing discussion to get to the reply box as I am still ringing with delight at your picture in this thread.  As far as I can recall, it's the first time in our many years of correspondence that you have photographed yourself without a hat!  Well done, friend!  Fully nude at last!
John

[Greenbare Woods]

Morality has to be on the individual as a choice, it cannot be legislated. Laws should only address those moral actions that are agreed to be universal, life and liberty etc. We have discovered on more than one occasion that to try to legislate morality, results in bad decisions.
Duane

You are right, Duane.  Legislating morality is dangerous and takes away freedom from individuals.   There is an old rule of law that a law has to have a "compelling public interest" to use the force of government punishment against a citizen.   The meaning of "compelling public interest," usually means that some citizen or group of citizens will be hurt or harmed if the behavior is allowed.  Legislating morality under force and punishment generally violates that principle. 

I recall reading of a court case fairly recently where the judge the Sheriff what harm had been done to someone by the accused being naked.  The Sheriff offered the usual nonsense about "the children" and such.  The judge opined that the Sheriff's general assertions was not a showing of harm being done.  No data or studies demonstrating actual harm had been provided to the court.  So the judge ruled that the law had no compelling public interest and therefore was not a valid law.  Case dismissed. 

If only more judges, and police, were as wise. 

In many US states the law says that the naked person has to be intentionally causing someone else to be "alarmed or affronted."  That sounds like making someone's butthurt into an actual "harm" to justify punishing citizens by force of law.  Its really bad law and should be tossed out. 

Bob

[Greenbare Woods]

Hey, Bob!
I'm afraid I've just skimmed all this left/right wing discussion to get to the reply box as I am still ringing with delight at your picture in this thread.  As far as I can recall, it's the first time in our many years of correspondence that you have photographed yourself without a hat!  Well done, friend!  Fully nude at last!
John

Hey John,
You want sunblock chemicals to keep from getting sunburn that's not my problem.   Right now its early spring so the top of my head can use a few minutes of sunshine.   Later in the season a hat will prevent sunburn on my tender hair free top. 

Bob