The Guardian for this meeting was Bruce Mowbray. The comments are by Bruce Mowbray.

Aphrodite Macbain: Hi Qt
Qt Core: Hi Aph
Aphrodite Macbain: I just dropped by to have a look at the pavilion changes
Aphrodite Macbain: It looks great!
Aphrodite Macbain: Love the pond underneath the fountain
Aphrodite Macbain: Hi Bruce
Bruce Mowbray: Hi, Aph. Hi, Qt!
Qt Core: (useful in this hot summer)
Qt Core: Hi Bruce
Aphrodite Macbain walks on water
Aphrodite Macbain: Back to my reading.....
Qt Core: have fun Aph
Aphrodite Macbain: bye for now
Bruce Mowbray: Bye, Aph.
Aphrodite Macbain: see you on Monday maybe
Bruce Mowbray: I can't figure out what to click to claim this session.
Bruce Mowbray: kk, Aph. See you Monday.
Bruce Mowbray: kk, I will try the edge.
Bruce Mowbray: Yayyy!
Qt Core: :-)
Bruce Mowbray: I had been looking for that pyramid-shaped rock that we used to click on.
Bruce Mowbray: Still HOT over there, huh?
Qt Core: yes, got to 39C i think today, some rain expected for tomorrow
Bruce Mowbray: omg!
Qt Core: (that is 102F)
Qt Core: and 70% humidity, that is the bad news
Bruce Mowbray: We've had an unusually cool summer over here -- rarely above 90 degrees... (F, of course).
Bruce Mowbray: OUCH!
Bruce Mowbray: That humidity is what really gets to you.
Bruce Mowbray: 90 F = 32.22222 C.
Qt Core: yes, i really notice it when i use only the dehumidifier part of my AC and i find it to be enough
Bruce Mowbray nods.
Bruce Mowbray: Looking forward to watching the Persiod shower this week?
Bruce Mowbray: (on Wednesday night, I think.)
Qt Core: not really (too much light pollution here and unable to get somewhere better without some heavy planning)
Bruce Mowbray: I think that if I were in the International Space Station I would be a bit worried on Wednesday-Thursday.
Bruce Mowbray nods, understands.
Bruce Mowbray: That's one of the benefits of living far from any large towns, as I do...
Bruce Mowbray: but there are always BUGS!
Qt Core: yes
Qt Core: to both
Bruce Mowbray: and usually some heavy dew -- due to the humidity.
Qt Core: i find that this year municipality pest control was great, i've been bitten less than let’s say ten times all summer
Bruce Mowbray: I have a mosquito hat (a hat with mosquito netting) that I usually wear... but it blocks the light a bit.
Bruce Mowbray: Great...
Qt Core: while in past years you could get let say five a day
Bruce Mowbray: I have biting flies in my driveway every year...
Bruce Mowbray: In fact, that's why I originally bought the mosquito hat.

--BELL—

Bruce Mowbray: Very few mosquitoes here --- but biting flies, sweat bees (no problem), and sometimes other sorts of bees - but they don't sting unless you swat at them.
Bruce Mowbray: The biting flies are the worst.
Bruce Mowbray: I wear insect repellant whenever I go for a walk (twice daily) just to keep the flies away -- and that works fine.
Qt Core: i went to an open air cinema a couple days ago (movie starting at 9:15pm, covered myself in repellant as i used in past years but i saw just one mosquitoes in all the night
Qt Core: not even the usual bug cloud around the lamps
Bruce Mowbray: Sounds like a success!
Bruce Mowbray: They do spray for bugs in the cities over here, but not in the small towns or in the country.
Qt Core: i've stumbled on an interesting article about languages a few days ago: http://news.sciencemag.org/social-sc...ed-have-common
Bruce Mowbray: Folks in the cities are more worried about West Nile virus and possibly about Lyme Disease (caused by ticks).
Bruce Mowbray clicks on link.
Bruce Mowbray: Wow. Looks fascinating. Thanks.
Qt Core: i thought you would like it ;-)
Bruce Mowbray: I will be listening to a ‘Philosophy of Language’ course soon -- right after I finish the ‘Philos of Mind’ course that I'm now taking from the same professor..
Bruce Mowbray: I am halfway through the ‘Philos of Mind’ course now.
Bruce Mowbray: 28 lectures in all.
Qt Core: just reading some sf where they just observed that the language you speak affects your moral values ;-)
Bruce Mowbray: I'd think so - - -
Bruce Mowbray: and language also affects your experiences in the world, of course.
Bruce Mowbray: (Wittgenstein...)
Bruce Mowbray: Much of the ‘Philos of Language’ is tied in with the ‘Philos of Society’ -- which will be the third course I’ll take from the same prof.
Qt Core: i often think about some difference between italian and english and how me as an italian speaker and others as english speakers perceive some things... like the absence in italian of the neuter case
Bruce Mowbray: This is the guy:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk5pIzCNOzU
Bruce Mowbray: Hmm. That's fascinating, Qt.
Bruce Mowbray: I think that Spanish and French don't have a neuter case either.
Qt Core: even a word li I has a gender (masculine)
Bruce Mowbray: Yes.
Bruce Mowbray: and objects..
Qt Core: the word I
Bruce Mowbray: mountains being feminine, for example.
Qt Core: not all of them
Bruce Mowbray: So, would you say that the language itself inclines one toward a sort of sexism?
Bruce Mowbray: I know that in Spanish the word for "I" is also masculine ("Yo") or I think it is, anyway.
Qt Core: yes, but strangely enough US seems more obsessed about political correctness while referring to sex talk
Bruce Mowbray: YES!
Bruce Mowbray: No question about that ‘correctness’ obsession over here.
Qt Core: maybe we accept that there is no way to be neutral
Qt Core: even feminism is masculine ;-)
Bruce Mowbray: Have you heard the latest squawk about Donald Trump attacking one of the interviewers at the recent "debate" -- saying she was probably angry because she was menstruating?
Bruce Mowbray: To me it seemed more like a circus than a serious debate.
Qt Core: and it seems he is leading the republican race too...
Bruce Mowbray: http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/08/politics/donald-trump-cnn-megyn-kelly-comment/

--BELL—

Bruce Mowbray: "You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, and blood coming out of her... whatever..."
Bruce Mowbray: ("wherever" was actually what Trump said.)
Bruce Mowbray: The Republicans are trying to get rid of him.
Qt Core: and woosh he loses 50% of american electorate (one would hope)
Bruce Mowbray: but if they do drop him, he will start a third party... and divide the conservative voters against themselves.
Bruce Mowbray: I vow to leave the country if he becomes president --- but I seriously doubt that would be possible... of course, I said the same thing about Reagan.
Qt Core: oh, that's why today I’ve read a news title about him considering going as an independent
Bruce Mowbray: yes, that's it.
Qt Core: i'd like to see a debate between him and Hillary Clinton where she physically slaps him after something like that ;-)
Bruce Mowbray: Americans have a tendency to favor border-line psychotic narcissists for their presidents.
Qt Core: border-line psychotic narcissists seems a good definition for americans ;-)
Bruce Mowbray: I totally agree with that.
Bruce Mowbray: Grabbing the spotlight seems to be the only moral value.
Qt Core: or maybe even swapping border-line with closet
Bruce Mowbray: But there really are a lot of good people over here --- It's unfair of me to characterize the average American as border-line psychotic.
Bruce Mowbray ponders "closet psychotic..."
Bruce Mowbray: Well, there seems to be little that's closeted about Donald Trump.
Bruce Mowbray: He just let's it all fly.
Qt Core: yes, but closet Trump look alike follow him as they recognize themselves in him (something like we have/had with Berlusconi)
Bruce Mowbray: Anyone with a sense of decency in human interaction is viewed by Trump as weak -- and emphasizing "political correctness" ...
Bruce Mowbray: I experienced some of that while teaching high school kids.... If you were "polite" and "decent" to them -- treated them with respect -- some of them interpreted that as weakness.
Bruce Mowbray: In other words, they almost demanded that you be mean to them.
Bruce Mowbray: That is the major reason that I left public school teaching -- and went to the prison to teach for eight years.
Qt Core: i'm quite against political correctness, i value human being respect, freedom of speech and taking responsibility of what you say ;-)
Bruce Mowbray: The prison was my BEST teaching experience in all 15 years of it ... 7 in public schools and 8 in the prison system.
Qt Core: political correctness is just an imposed fake thing
Bruce Mowbray: Perhaps, but it is also a way of trying to be respectful...
Qt Core: yes, but i do that as i really respect, not as i'm imposed it
Bruce Mowbray: If someone is physically disabled, for example, and I use disparaging words to refer to him, then that is disrespectful....
Qt Core: (and then there is common sense)
Bruce Mowbray: Agreed... respect is not something that should (or can) be imposed.
Bruce Mowbray: Free speech is vital ... even if we end up with Trump speaking TOO freely, in my humble opinion, anyway.
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, common sense and empathy.
Qt Core: yes, let him make a fool of himself
Qt Core: ;-)
Bruce Mowbray: I do believe that the vast majority of Americans see him as a clown and a fool.
Bruce Mowbray: But he's rich, and he's powerful, and bombastic,
Bruce Mowbray: and he commands that the spotlight be focused on him.
Bruce Mowbray: (Narcissist.)
Bruce Mowbray: But there's no way America is going to put that clown in the White House.
Bruce Mowbray: (Of course, he wouldn't be the first clown to get elected president.)
Bruce Mowbray: Italy has had a few, too, right?

--BELL—

Bruce Mowbray: Democracy has many problems....
Qt Core: forgot where i've read that he may have 95% probability to get there if it will not be Hillary
Bruce Mowbray: I'm backing Bernie Sanders right now...
Bruce Mowbray: but he's FAR too liberal for the average American, I'm afraid.
Bruce Mowbray: Eliza is also backing him, btw.
Bruce Mowbray: He's rising in the polls.
Bruce Mowbray: and Hillary is coming under more intense scrutiny because of her private emails..
Bruce Mowbray: the ones that may have revealed classified State Dept. information.
Qt Core: between his Hebrew origin and his socialist self-definition wouldn't he anger everyone (well maybe he lack been black and gay for that)
Bruce Mowbray: (when Hillary was Secretary of State).... especially during the Benghazi, Libya thing - when the embassy there was burned and four staff killed.
Bruce Mowbray: Bernie might isolate himself with his socialist label... don't know about the Hebrew thing, though.
Qt Core: i find all of that being so incredibly stupid that i almost can’t believe it
Bruce Mowbray: I remember when they said Kennedy could never be elected because he was Catholic.
Bruce Mowbray: I also find American politics to be stupid -- and enormously futile... because those with the corporations backing them will inevitably get elected.
Bruce Mowbray: The Supreme Court virtually made that inevitable with their "Citizens United" decision.
Qt Core: isn’t Sanders a little too old for the white house ?
Bruce Mowbray: (unlimited amounts of corporate funds going secretly to Political Action Committees.... that support a candidate for what he can do for those corporations.)
Bruce Mowbray: I think he's fairly old..
Bruce Mowbray: not sure how old Sander is, though.
Bruce Mowbray: He looks old.
Qt Core: born in 1941
Bruce Mowbray: But he's pulling in the big crowds at his campaign stops in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Bruce Mowbray: He's one year older than I am, then.
Bruce Mowbray: Remember that Reagan was 76!
Qt Core: ! i thought he was way younger
Bruce Mowbray: he (Reagan) was already suffering from Alzheimer’s when he left the White House -- and almost deaf, too.
Bruce Mowbray: He (Reagan) used his deafness when he didn't want to answer a reporter's question... just claimed that he couldn't hear it.
Qt Core: many deaf or almost deaf use that tactic
Bruce Mowbray nods.
Bruce Mowbray: I had a 94 year-old friend who used it all the time.
Bruce Mowbray: I even bought him hearing aid devices, but he refused to wear them -- because they took away his power.
Bruce Mowbray: (manipulative power.)
Qt Core: we already had the prescription for hearing aid for my mother when she plain told me she didn't need them
Bruce Mowbray: Just checked the weather prediction for the coming week.... and it looks like it's going to be cloudy on Wednesday -- so, might miss the meteor shower.
Bruce Mowbray: Many people with hearing loss will claim they don't need (want) them.
Qt Core: you should look from a couple days before to a couple days after, meteor shower isn't an exact thing
Bruce Mowbray: I am the same way about using a cane.
Bruce Mowbray: I really should use a cane because of my vertigo and danger of falling... but I'm too proud to use one.
Qt Core: but give you power, to use it as a weapon ;-)
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, I will begin looking for the meteors on Tuesday night and continue through Thursday night.
Bruce Mowbray: Ha ha! (thinking of using the cane as a weapon.)
Bruce Mowbray: I actually have at least five different canes, but use none of them... except when hiking on the country road.
Bruce Mowbray: (where no one sees me).

--BELL—

Bruce Mowbray: Well, it’s time for me to scrape up supper and go for my evening walk down the road.
Bruce Mowbray: Be well, Qt. Hope you and your mother are able to stay cool.
Qt Core: :-) technology is helping us
Qt Core: bye Bruce, have fun
Bruce Mowbray: Great.
Bruce Mowbray: Be well.