The U.S. is the undisputed world leader in
incarceration, as it is the world leader in military
dominance. Only one in 28 of drone victims are the
intended, guilty or innocent, targets. One third of
women in prison worldwide, are, at this moment, in
U.S. prisons. The crimes that most threaten the
safety and livelihood of people in the U.S. of course
remain the crimes of the powerful, of the corporations
that taint our skies with carbon and acid rainfall,
peddle weapons around an already suffering globe,
shut down factories and whole economies in pursuit
of quick wealth, and send our young people to war.
Chief Executive Officers of major corporations that
produce products inimical to human survival will most
likely never be charged much less convicted of any
crime. I don’t want to see them jailed. I do want to
see them rehabilitated.
Howling at the grave of God under the toll of the
eternal bells.
Re: The Anti Racism protests in Ferguson
A riot is the language of the unheard.
- ML King
There are two primary choices in life: to accept
conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility
for changing them
An ancient goddess sent four curses on anyone who
eats the meat of another Earthling. Modern medical
science has updated the names of the four curses.
Their new names are Stroke, Diabetes, Heart Disease
and Cancer.
Happy Birthday Sal
from all the women who dealt with you in the past
“Apres Moi Le Deluge” = After I am gone, the world
can go to hell, I could care less. (Louis the 15th when
questioned about running up the national debt)
"Again, you have your opinion and I have mine"
sounds bleak, like discussion means talking with no
listening. Each party talks and then goes their
separate ways, unaffected, untouched.
Here is the underlying thinking behind the “via
negativa”: Everything that exists changes and that is a
problem because if God exists, then God changes.
Except nothing perfect can change, evolve, grow, in
short experience time. But we live in time and our
minds cannot comprehend something outside of time.
Therefore, any concept of God you have is incorrect
and is standing between you and what God actually
is. So the Via Negativa people advocated not to talk
about God, not to think about God, not to pray to God,
in short, remove all concepts of God from your life.
And if you do that, you have the greatest chance of
experiencing God.
One of the ways that capitalism sustains itself is by
encouraging self interest or "What's in it for me?" The
revolutionary thinking that is replacing capitalism
sustains itself by encouraging altruistic thinking or
"What can I do for others?"
"All points of view are equally valid" is junk food for
the mind. It leads to "There is no right and wrong",
which leads to fear, superstition and powerlessness.
Consider that capitalism endures through five
industries: Banking, Insurance, Investment,
Entertainment and Advertizing. The last two play a
large role in shaping our minds and the way we are
supposed to see the world. However, that world is
rarely like the world we see in our day to day lives.
So, some people resist and say "I will make my own
picture of the world based on what I see, not on what I
am supposed to buy." Thus begins the revolutionary
mindset: creating the new in the shell of the old.
Personally, I endorse nutrition and exercise to be a
part of the new world we are creating, that the
personal is the political. Not all people are like me
though.
1 out of 5 people surveyed say that mistakes were
made by a doctor that was treating them.
2% of those people sued their doctors.
Of those 2%, 25 to 30% win their law suits.
http://www.malignant.us/index.htm/about.html
Instead of emailing large attachments use
dropsend.com
It was a day
when the wife
was acting haywire
like Bette Davis
throwing a fit
and the kid
was wailing the blues,
scratching my inner guts
with barbwire,
and I wondered
what ever happened
to that small room
where I was alone,
looking out the window
at the rain
and glad to be alone
forever.
Shipping deadlines to ensure your mail arrives by
12/25/14:
- INTERNATIONAL First class & priority mail: send by
12/2/14
- DOMESTIC: First class & priority mail: send by
12/20/14
I’ve had so many knives
stuck into me,
that when someone
hands me a flower
I can’t quite make out
what it is.
It takes time
10/31/14 The need to struggle for economic
democracy
We live inside a system of thought called capitalism
that allowed the 85 wealthiest people on Earth to
make almost half a million dollars a MINUTE last
year.
I am puzzled by your statement "The vast vast vast
majority of men and women who serve in the armed
forces do not deserve that picture". Does that mean
on Veteran's Day we should not discuss Abu Ghraib,
the My Lai massacre, or the real purpose behind any
US military intervention? Should we also ignore the
fact that the US has 750 military bases throughout the
world? Should we also ignore the fact that the U.S.
spends more on its military than the next eight
countries combined? I don't think so, I want to look at
the big picture. I don't want Veteran's Day to be a
superficial holiday, like Columbus Day or
Independence Day in which history is ignored so we
can feel good.
There is a saying that goes something like this "If one
ignores the past, they will eventually relive it."
Suppose someone's cat climbed a tree and was too
scared to come down. A young boy climbed the tree
to rescue the cat, but a branch broke. He fell down
and broke his arm. I would think that after we took the
boy to the hospital and had his arm put in a cast, we
should discuss what he did, why he did it and what we
should do if it happens again in the future. That is how
I celebrate Veteran's Day. It is a perfect opportunity to
examine what the US military has done, why they did
it and what should they do in the future. You might
notice that some of the people in this discussion only
want to talk about what they did (their own personal
experience), as if the world revolves around them. I
don't blame them, because in capitalist culture, we
are taught to think only of ourselves. Look at this book
by one of the heroes of capitalist thinking.
You mentioned the career military who fight for the
USA when called upon regardless of the war. I am so
glad you brought that up. I don't think blind obedience
by soldiers is a good thing. Remember the
Nuremberg Trials? All the top Nazis wanted to be set
free because "they were only following orders". Even
Adolph Eichmann used that defense. Here are his
exact words "I would stress that I am guilty of having
been obedient, having subordinated myself to my
official duties and the obligations of war service and
my oath of allegiance and my oath of office." This is
the real danger of Veterans Day: It removes all moral
obligations from soldiers by simply not mentioning
morality in the present or in the past. Odder still is that
when I do a facebook post focusing on the need for
morality in the military, I am criticized for posting
"scurrilous propaganda". I just turned 63 and I am
saddened by how much the US has lost its moral
compass.
There is a line from a Louis L'Amour novel "Lance
broke out into a cold sweat when he realized he had
walked into a gun fight, carrying only his knife."
10/28/14 Representation, Reality and Control
Gustav Courbet painted "The Origin of the World” in
1866. It hangs in the famous Musée d’Orsay in Paris
(photo 1). Luxembourgian performance artist,
Deborah de Robertis, sat down in front of the painting
and revealed to museum patrons the reality
represented by the painting (photo 2). The police
were called, she was arrested and taken away. US
media outlets, like the Huffington post, illustrated the
story by showing a photo of the event altered with a
black circle, although they had no problem showing
the painting (photo 3).
Also, a few days ago the Musee d'Orsay allowed
painter Lilianne Milgrom to make an “authorized” copy
of the painting as museum patrons strolled by.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhUES1sbl6g)
Let's break down this story into its simplest possible
components:
1) displaying the painting = acceptable,
2) replicating the painting = acceptable with
permission
3) photo of performance artist = acceptable if altered
4) reality = you go to jail
This story tells us that patriarchal culture wants to
control:
1) how women’s bodies are represented
2) who has the final say about new forms of
representation
3) the penalty for challenging patriarchal culture
I would define facebook as a privately funded space
which has as its main objective to make money by
bringing eyeballs to advertisers. Capitalism is amoral.
Look at Disney which made family oriented movies
and also invested in a porno channel offered to
motels.
Facebook does have the power to delete this post
with both my words and your words. Do you think it is
right that they have that power? I don't.
Back to your question, the Musée d’Orsay is indeed
publicly funded. Do you think they are acting in the
best interests of the public by declaring "This is art.
That is not art. In fact, call the police and have her
arrested, even though she is a member of the public."
On 5/21/72 Lazlo Toth attacked the Pieta in Rome
with a sledge hammer stating "I am Jesus Christ!". I
totally agree in the decision to have him subdued and
taken away. (Incidentally, he was not charged with a
crime.) But in this instance, Deborah de Robertis is
charged with a crime. Why? Because in a patriarchal
society men have the final say on how a woman's
body is represented.
In 1907, British Prime Minister, Campbell Bannerman
announced that it would be important to establish as
strong foreign presence close to the point where the
Mediterranean was linked with the Red Sea. “We
should install in this region, near the Suez Canal, a
force hostile to the people of the country, and friendly
to the European countries.”
Yesterday, I went in for my annual “heart efficiency
test”, a/k/a Multi Gated Acquisition Scan, a/k/a MUGA
Scan. I just received the results via my online mychart
account. My ejection fraction is 70%. That is as high
as one can go. The scale doesn't go any higher.
Fantastic! To think that in 2008, my ejection fraction
was 43%. (If you go below 40%, you are in danger of
passing out and need medical attention.) They didn't
have to tell me twice that it was time for me to start
exercising. I bought a treadmill and made it part of my
daily routine. Six years later I am at the top of the
chart.
2008 = 43%
2009 = 51%
2010 = 55%
2011 = 61%
2012 = 64%
2013 = 68%
2014 = 70%
I now know have an idea of how Daniil Trifonov felt
when he won the last Tchaikovsky Piano Competition.
The three phases of African Americans’ experience:
1) Slavery
2) Jim Crow
3) Mass incarceration and police brutality
Desire forms the basis of all human relationships.
At age 63 I am starting to notice they are beginning to
walk around and shut out the lights. And on the
horizon, I can see the gravediggers rubbing their
hands together.
The two party system has indeed become a farce.
The super rich simply cover all bases by donating to
both parties. For example, brothers Alfonso Fanjul
and Jose Fanjul preside over an empire worth at least
half a billion dollars. They own 180,000 acres of sugar
cane in the Florida Everglades and another 240,000
acres in the Dominican Republic, where they also
operate the luxurious Casa de Campo tourist resort.
They are pillars of the Palm Beach jet set, own sugar
refineries in several states, such as Domino Sugar.
The Fanjuls also are kings of corporate welfare. They
rake in $65 million a year in agricultural subsidies
through a federal program that props up domestic
sugar prices. Every year one brother donates $1
million to the Republicans and the other brother
donates $1 million to the Democrats. Their influence
is legendary. On Feb. 19, 1996, Clinton and intern
Lewinsky had one of their private sex sessions in the
Oval Office, except it was coitus interruptus. Clinton
pulled out to take a call from Alfonso Fanjul
complaining that Al Gore was making a speech about
“protecting the Florida Everglades from wealthy
industrialists”. Clinton assured him that he would
make sure nothing came of it (This was from the
Monica Lewitsky testimony.)
On the phone the voice does not say as much of what
the mind is thinking as the written word does.
Writers for Sports Illustrated are given a “monthly
review” by its parent corp, Time Inc. One of the
categories they are rated on is “how well do they
produce content that is beneficial to our relationship
with advertisers?”
Some people try to look younger. Not me, I want
people to see my mileage. I traveled a long way and
some of the roads weren’t paved.
- Will Rogers
Dying is a way of life in capitalist culture: Deadened
minds, feelings, thoughts and bodies. The resurgance
of zombie movies & TV shows is no accident.
We have a culture based on consumerism and
commerce at the expense of community and real
contact.
10/3/14 Changing history
In Jefferson County Colorado some conservatives
were taken aback by the public outcry over their plan
to change the way history is taught in its schools.
They want history that depicts the United States as
unique, not as one nation among many.They also
want history that promotes patriotism and respect for
authority, leaving out history that encourages or
condones civil disobedience, social strife or disregard
of the law.For example, the civil rights movement and
the campaign for women's equality would be taught
as reforms that came from politicians without any
mention of the social unrest that motivated them.
Inability to predict the future and lack of control about
the present are characteristics of living in a fascist
state.
Vinnie is noted for speaking in non sequiturs. His
mind is constantly going from one tangent to another
tangent. I gave up trying to communicate with him
years ago. He was born and raised in Kaisertown. His
brother, Paul, was one of my close friends. Their
father, Chet, also had a mental disability: when the
word "mason" ever came up, he would talk for hours
about how there was a masonic plot that always
intervened and thwarted every opportunity in his life.
All the people in Kaisertown always tolerated "Mr.
Chet", being very careful to keep his mind off of his all
consuming conspiracy theory. Anyway, after Vinny
got married, moved to Ohio, lost his computer
programming job when the dot com bubble burst and
was unable to support his family, a divorce followed
which "pushed his mind over the edge". He started
using his intelligence to read law books and initiate
court actions to be allowed to see his three children.
He has probably started about 25 court actions, all of
which have failed, probably because he can't keep his
mind focused when he's arguing his case. I have seen
one of his court petitions where he brings in sports
analogies or references to the Civil War - all things
that judges have no patience with. These days the
people of Kaisertown give Vinnie the same pass that
they used to give his father. What is perplexing is that
even though all three of his kids are over 18 and
visitation is a moot point, Vinnie is still going on about
court cases in Ohio. The similarities between his
mental problem and his fathers are astonishing. It has
to be genetic.
There was a time when you could go out into the
forest and cut down as many trees as you needed to
build a home for yourself. Nature itself was a free
resource. You provided the labor. That changed when
someone said "You can't cut down those trees, I own
this entire forest." The forest became capital that
could be "owned". Thus, a class of people emerged
who sought to own more and more things that were
previously free. A few years ago in Brazil a private
company bought the "water rights" making it illegal for
anyone to collect rain water without paying a fee.
Social injustice and economic inequality has grown
with the enrichment of the capitalist class whose main
goal in life is to own more and more. Remember the
old TV show "Bonanza"? One family owned 600,000
acres of land. Nobody in the show ever questioned
whether this was rational.
----------------------------------In DSM#1 in 1950 there were 106 mental disorders
listed.
In DSM#5 in 2013 there are 370 mental disorders
listed.
----------------------------------The effect on the history of music by African
Americans:
Spirituals, Rag Time, Jazz, Blues, Swing, Rock-nRoll, Rhythm and Blues, Do Wop, Soul, Disco, Rap,
Hip Hop
----------------------------------Rubbermaid used to employ thousands of people in
the US. Today they operate out of China:
http://ir.newellrubbermaid.com/investorrelations/press-releases/press-releasedetails/2012/Newell-Rubbermaid-Expands-Shanghai-
Office-To-Accelerate-Growth-inChina1132275/default.aspx
----------------------------------Don’t send any mail there as it may never reach me.
--They are pissed because I threw a few glasses of
whiskey against the walls, bled on the rug & almost
died several times and because the water pipes broke
continually in the walls and they had to rip their walls
open and I was there, usually in bed hungover sick
unhappy with their pipes and their bodies their
intrusions upon my tiniest of moments.
--May those whore-hating finks rot before they reach
hell.
----------------------------------Building the Office Computer:
SD RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB)
240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900)
Desktop Memory Model
Power Supply: CORSAIR HX Series HX850 850W
ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI CrossFire 80 PLUS
GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power
Video Card: VisionTek 900232 Radeon HD 3650
512MB 128-Bit GDDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP
Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
Processor:AMD FX-8350 Black Edition Vishera 8Core 4.0GHz (4.2GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 125W
Desktop Processor FD8350FRHKBOX
DVD / CD burners: LITE-ON DVD Burner - Bulk Black
SATA Model iHAS124-04 - OEM
System hard drives: SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series MZ7PD128BW 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid
State Drive (SSD)
Data hard drives: Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001
2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5"
Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive
Motherboard: ASRock 990FX Extreme4 AM3+ AMD
990FX + SB950 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD
Motherboard
----------------------------------We think alike in that we both see how economics has
shaped the way we relate to the world. I would take it
a step further. Since people created the economic
system, people can change it. In fact, we have to
change it for humanity to survive. The latest scientific
testing shows that in 2014 there is more carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels
than there has been in 3 million years. All that carbon
dioxide (405 ppm) is starting to change the weather. If
we don't reduce it, agriculture will start to suffer
because there will be more droughts and storms.
Unfortunately the fossil fuel industry is claiming that
this is a "hoax", just like the tobacco industry denied
for decades that cigarette smoking did not affect one's
health.
----------------------------------Advertising: When you pay for something, you are not
only paying for what it costs. You are also paying for
what it costs to persuade you to want it. ($171 billion
in 2013)
----------------------------------Skimask,
It sounds like you have reconciled in your mind that
Gary is going to remain a part of Michele's life. (In
other words, Michele will never ban Gary from her
life.) This means your goal is to change Michele's
attitude toward Gary, so he has less power over her.
One factor that is making that difficult is Michele's lack
of communication. So, first you are trying to get her to
be more communicative, then you will try to get her to
be more independent of Gary.
It also sounds like you realize that pursuing your goal
will be accompanied with a lot of frustration,
dissatisfaction and stress. And you are willing to
endure all of that.
----------------------------------8/22/14 Pascal's Wager
If we walked into a casino and sat down at a game
table and the dealer said 'Does God exist, yes or no,
place your bets.' i am putting my money on Yes. If
God exists I win, if God doesn't we all lose, at least
when we die if there is no more life.
Your analogy of sitting down at a casino table is a
wonderful reinstatement of a philosophical argument
from 1650 called "Pascal's Wager". Here is a counter
argument. I asked a friend at a recording studio
"When you hook up your microphone cords, why do
you lay them out so carefully on the ground?" He
replied "It eliminates noise on a very small scale. It is
a small thing, but if you do enough small things, soon
you have a big thing." The same applies to life. If you
seek to believe enough true things, they add up and
the quality of your life is improved.
----------------------------------8/20/14 The cold greed of capitalism
Fenner Precision set up a Buffalo facility in 2008. I
suspect they got a bunch of tax breaks which are
starting to run out. In 2013 the Buffalo facility
generated approximately $12.3 million in annual
revenue which was sent to its headquarters in Hull,
England which contributed to the total $1.36 billion in
annual revenue.
The employees losing their jobs care, but who else
cares?
Nicholas Hobson is the CEO who answers to the
shareholders. He probably doesn’t care.
Here are the biggest shareholders who only care that
the stock price keeps going up:
Standard Life Investments Ltd. 13.2%
Aberdeen Asset Managers Ltd. 10.1%
Threadneedle Asset Management Ltd. 7.61%
Mondrian Investment Partners Ltd. 3.92%
Montanaro Asset Management Ltd. 3.37%
Norges Bank Investment Management 3.04%
BNP Paribas Asset Management 3.00%
Legal & General Investment Management Ltd. 2.83%
Allianz Global Investors Europe 2.60%
Sarasin & Partners 2.40%
What kind of an economic system do we have that
only cares about one thing: maximizing profits in any
possible way?
Imagine an economic system where the workers
would control the Buffalo facility of Fenner Precision.
60 jobs generating $12.3 million in revenue? I don’t
think they would be closing.
----------------------------------Ideas 5 Ways You Don't Realize Movies Are
Controlling Your Brain
By David Wong August 06, 2012
So there was a mass shooting during a Batman movie
and, goddamn it, it turned out the killer owned a
Batman mask and called himself "The Joker." By now,
several talking heads have come to the conclusion
that the movie somehow triggered the massacre, or
whatever.
--You know the game at this point -- sadly, we've seen
this whole cycle play out more than once.
As always, this knee-jerk reaction by old, scared
talking heads will predictably result in most of our
audience scoffing and saying that movies can't
influence people to do anything, because movies are
make-believe and every non-crazy member of the
audience knows how to separate fact from fiction.
Well, the thing is ...
--that is equally wrong.
--But not for the reason the talking heads think.
#5.
--No, You Can't Separate Fact from Fiction
Getty
You've seen Braveheart, right? You know that's
based on a historical event -- the movie makes it clear
that Mel Gibson's character, William Wallace, was a
real guy who really lived in Scotland back in the horse
and castle days.
--You also know that Hollywood spiced things up for
the movie -- the real Wallace probably never
assassinated a dude and then jumped his horse off a
balcony in slow motion.
So if you don't mind, just quickly tell me which parts
were fiction.
--Without looking it up.
Probably the part where more than the six people
directly in front of him could hear what he was saying
during that speech.
Like the evil king they were fighting -- was he a real
historical figure, too? What about Wallace's palooka
friend, Hamish? Or the crazy Irish sidekick? Were
those real guys? That part where Mel Gibson's main
ally (Robert the Bruce) betrayed him and sided with
the English in that big battle (aka the turning point of
the entire story)-- did that really happen? What about
the bit at the end, where Wallace has sex with that
princess, revealing that the future king of England
would actually be Mel Gibson's son? That's the most
historically important thing in the whole film, surely
that was true, right?
You don't know, do you? But who cares, right? It's not
like that impacts your life at all.
--It's just historical trivia.
--OK, now consider this: After Jaws hit theaters, we
nearly drove sharks to extinction with feverish
hunting, to the point that their populations may never
recover.
Every single person who saw that movie knew that it
was fiction, and that those characters were just
actors.
--They probably knew that, in real life, there isn't a
shark big enough to eat your boat.
--But, when the genius scientist character in the
movie agreed that killing the shark was the only way
to prevent dead tourists, we assumed that part was
true.
--The same as we assumed you could really blow up
an oxygen tank by shooting it.
So, we killed all the sharks, based on what the makebelieve movie told us.
Ah, but that's one oddball isolated incident.
--Hey, did you know that after Top Gun, Navy aviator
recruitment skyrocketed by as much as 500 fucking
percent? Or that the number of kids taking martial arts
classes exploded after The Karate Kid? Or that the
popularity of the CSI TV shows has resulted in a glut
of students going into forensic sciences? Or that I
could cite examples of this until you hit your monthly
bandwidth cap? How many of you left Fight Club
thinking you knew how to make napalm? Which of us
haven't forced a baby to do that wanking motion after
watching The Hangover?
I know what some of you are already saying: "So,
what, because some gullible people do what movies
tell them, that means a Batman movie made that guy
shoot up the theater? So I suppose watching
Bridesmaids made us all start shitting in sinks."
No.
--You're intentionally reaching for examples where it
doesn't happen, and ignoring all of the ones where it
does -- even if some movie straight up told you to
become a mass murderer, it'd be working against a
lifetime of society pounding the opposite message
into your brain.
--The point of this article isn't to pin violence on
movies.
--The point is that it's much bigger than that.
--Because ...
--Stories Were Invented to Control You
This isn't some paranoid conspiracy theory -- it's a
fundamental part of how human culture came about.
--Ask yourself: Why do we go watch superhero
movies? After all, variations of these stories about
brave, superhuman heroes predate recorded history.
--We used to tell them around campfires before
written language even existed.
They were created as a way to teach you how to
behave.
Thousands of years ago, when your ancestors were
living in tribes and hunting gazelles for food, nobody
knew how to read.
--Even if they could, paper wasn't a thing, parchment
was rare and precious.
--They had no written historical records, they had no
educational system that could devote years to
teaching history to the kids.
This was a problem.
--Once humans started forming civilizations, the guys
in charge didn't just need the next generation of
children to know how to fish and hunt, they needed
citizens who would fall in line and fight for the tribe.
--That meant the kids needed to understand the big
picture: why preserving the tribe is important, why we
hate the tribe across the river, why our tribe is better
than that tribe, why it's important to go off and fight in
the next war no matter how scared you are.
Now, to do this, they could either A) bore the kids to
death with a years-long recounting of the history of
the tribe, which nobody has probably written down
anyway or B) tell them a cool story.
--They could tell the thrilling tale of Kolgor the Valiant
who, when the evil neighboring tribe came to slay all
of the women and children, stood alone and fought
bravely through the night, with four arrows in his
chest, until the enemy retreated in terror.
--You want to be like Kolgor, don't you, little one?
Otherwise, he will have died in vain.
Clearly "B" is the one that is going to stick in the kid's
brain.
--It doesn't matter that the story is either fiction or
grossly exaggerated -- it gets the job done, it makes
the kid conform to be the kind of citizen the tribe
needs him to be.
--This isn't necessarily a bad thing -- your tribe may
very well be better than the one across the river, your
real history is probably full of real heroes whose
sacrifices were just as important as, if less romantic
than, Kolgor the Valiant's.
--The tribe didn't go with the fictional version because
they were liars, they went with it because it was the
only way for the "truth" to survive.
So while we use the word "myth" these days to mean
"a lie that needs to be debunked," often the myths
were simply more efficient versions of the truth.
--They're easier to remember, they don't take as long
to tell and they eliminate a lot of the messy
ambiguities that can confuse the point.
--Also, they won't bore the listener to tears.
The point is, this is why stories were invented -- to
shape your brain in a certain way.
--A guy named Joseph Campbell wrote whole books
about it, you should read them.
--These basic stories, these myths of the hero
overcoming the odds, the great man who sacrifices
himself for the greater good -- they're what make
civilization go.
--In a society, the people and the buildings and the
roads are the hardware, mythology is the software.
And while your ancestors had their heroes that they
heard about around the campfire, you have Batman,
and Luke Skywalker, and Harry Potter.
--And yes, the movies you watched this summer
serve the same purpose as those ancient myths.
--Sometimes this is super obvious (clearly Rocky IV
and The Day After Tomorrow are trying to cram a
message into your brain with the subtlety of a
sweatpants erection).
--But what's the message behind James Bond? Or
Iron Man?
"There isn't one"
That's like saying this sculpture is nothing more than
men hugging the thighs of another man, their thumbs
gently grazing his testicles.
You see ...
#3.
--The Writer of a Story Always Has an Agenda
Getty
Quiz Time: What do these hugely popular hero
characters all have in common?
Batman
Spider-Man
Superman
Luke Skywalker
Frodo from The Lord of the Rings
Harry Potter
Finn from Adventure Time
Got it yet? They're all orphans.
Getty
And that's why all orphans wear capes.
That's kind of weird, right? Do you think that's a
random choice? Do you think the writer just flipped a
coin? Or do you think there's an emotional button that
is being pushed there, the writer reaching around the
logical part of your brain and triggering something
inside you without you knowing it?
That sounds devious, but those little subconscious
tricks are Fiction Writing 101 (we covered a bunch of
them here).
--It's a scary power to entrust someone with, if you
think about it.
--Especially if you, as the audience, don't pay close
attention to what they're doing.
--You leave the theater a different person than you
were when you came in.
--It's a difference in millimeters, sure, but you're going
to watch a thousand hours of the stuff in the course of
a year.
--It builds up.
"What, so you're trying to tell me there's some hidden
agenda behind the Transformers movies? It's freaking
robots punching each other"
No, there is no intentional hidden agenda (well,
maybe a little), but there is certainly a set of
assumptions that the filmmakers are passing on to
you.
--In the case of Transformers, the assumption is that
combat is beautiful and exciting, that military
hardware is sexy, that destruction is gorgeous and fun
and completely free of consequence.
--And, most importantly, that the solution to all conflict
is to be more masculine, powerful, aggressive,
confident and destructive than the bad guys.
"But the people already think that These movies are
just giving us what we want"
Right, but why do you want that? You think you came
out of the womb thinking that military hardware was
cool? If you grew up in a real war zone, and didn't
have movies and TV, would you have the same
opinion?
I'm not saying Michael Bay is a secret tool of the
military industrial complex trying to brainwash you into
supporting the next war, no more than the makers of
Jaws were trying to wipe out the sharks -- they were
just trying to make a scary movie, and Michael Bay is
just a dude who likes explosions.
--It doesn't matter why the message is there -- it
soaks into your brain either way.
--This is what everyone misses when debating this
stuff -- one side says, "Hollywood is trying to
brainwash you" and the other side says, "Michael Bay
isn't smart enough to brainwash an armadillo" and
they're both missing the point.
This is why, when some people point out how racist
the Lord of the Rings stories are (i.e., orcs are evil by
virtue of being born orcs, dwarfs are greedy because
they are dwarfs, Aragorn is heroic due to his "blood"),
it's both correct and unfair.
--It's correct because, yes, that is the way Tolkien's
universe is set up -- nobody in the stories hesitates to
make sweeping generalizations about a race, and
they're always proven right when they do.
--Frodo's magical sword didn't glow in the presence of
enemies, it glowed in the presence of a certain race
(orcs).
--Go write a movie about a hero with a gun that glows
in the presence of Arabs.
--See what happens.
But it's also unfair, because Tolkien clearly didn't sit
down and think, "I'm going to increase the net weight
of racism in the world in order to firmly establish white
dominance And I'll do it with elves" He was just writing
what he knew.
--Of course a guy born in 1892 assumed that Nordic
races were evolved and graceful, that certain other
races were born savages and that midgets love axes.
--Hell, he could have been the least racist person he
knew, and he'd still be the equivalent of a Klansman
today.
--Whether or not the agenda was intentional is utterly
irrelevant.
I can't emphasize this enough -- there is no
conspiracy.
--Yeah, you'll occasionally have a movie like Act of
Valor that is transparently intended to boost military
recruitment, but 99 percent of the time, the movie's
"agenda" is nothing more than a lot of creative people
passing along their own psychological hang-ups,
prejudices, superstitions, ignorance and fetishes,
either intentionally or unintentionally.
--But they are still passed on to you, because that's
what stories are designed to do.
--Michael Bay feels a certain way about women, and
about the role of women in the world, and you will
leave his movie agreeing with him just a little bit more
than when you came in.
Getty
"Dude There was a homeless family of four living in
there"
Knowing that, it's even scarier to consider that ...
Read more: http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-waysyou-dont-realize-movies-are-controlling-yourbrain/#ixzz39p1Bc8MFare underneath our actions.
--For example, I extended a water pipe inside my
house so I could put a spigot in my backyard.
--The idea underneath that was to make it easier to
provide water for the birds, replenish the water in my
fish pond, and water the plants.
--The idea underneath that is my desire to feel a
connection with nature.
--The idea underneath that is that sanity is nurtured
by connecting with reality whereas insanity is nurtured
by distancing oneself from reality.
--My point is that the best way to help people in
conversation is to talk about the ideas that are
underneath the surface because that is the source of
all of our actions.
--If you want to change the world, start by changing
people's underlying ideas.
----------------------------------An international team of scientists led by the
University of California Los Angeles has found that
levels of a peptide called hypocretin (also known as
orexin) greatly increase when humans are happy but
decrease when they are sad.
----------------------------------DuPont, Monsanto & Syngenta control 53% of the
worldwide seed market.
----------------------------------There is sitting meditation and practical meditation.
--Sitting may be OK for the individual in a position to
do so.
--Usually in the U.S., these folks hail from middle
class or petit bourgeois backgrounds and have a
romanticized fascination with the East.
--Han Shan was an actual Zen hermit monk in China.
--He left the monastery due to its puffery.
--So many of today's American and European Zen
center leaders are also full pot puffery and involved in
fakery.
--Among other things, Buddha recognized
compassion for living beings.
--On this view, the practice of medicine may be
understood as practical meditation; as may the
practice of picketing and struggling against wars and
drones and picketing in labor struggles and support of
women's right to choose and active opposition to
racism or homophobia etc.
--Sitting with self-satisfied empty mind is solipsism.
--In other words, those who do nothing make no
mistakes.
-----------------------------------
Thomas asked me this question again, so I will
answer it differently. "Who are you to say how much
money is enough?" I am just like the people who told
wealthy plantation owners that they couldn't make
money by having slaves or the people who told
wealthy industrialists that they couldn't make money
by hiring children. You see anybody has the right to
make as much money as they want as long as they
are making it in a moral way (laboring for it). That's
the issue here. Warren Buffet is not "working" for his
money, because under capitalism one can make
"money work for more money". That is what "capital"
is. A highly acclaimed book came out this year by
economist Thomas Piketty called "Capital in the
Twenty-First Century". He demonstrates that
throughout history "money working for more money"
has always surpassed laboring for money. The
problem is that unless money is based on labor it is
worthless. Hence, capital is like a vampire that feeds
off of labor. Eventually, it will kill the host. That's why
we need to come up with a new system.
----------------------------------The Fan by Gene Grabiner
Once there was a fan
Who had beer and wing Sundays
With his buddies
Cheering the home team all season
Then he got laid off
And he had beer and wing Sundays
With his buddies
Cheering the home team
All season
Then his unemployment ran out
And there were no jobs
So he slept in the car
And went to his buddies’ houses
All season for
Beer and wing Sundays
And to cheer the home team
Then he lost the car
And went to live at the City Mission
Where they once in awhile had wing Sundays
And cheered the home team
No matter what
Football didn’t change his life
----------------------------------Wolfgang Beltracchi has the ability to paint just like
any famous painter.
--However, all he paints is what the artist WOULD
HAVE PAINTED if he had the time.
--He passed them off as “undiscovered”
masterpieces.
-----------------------------------Are you aware that there is very little archeological
evidence that Jesus even existed? In fact, the
archeological evidence shows inconsistencies in the
Jesus story.
--For example, there was no "Bethlehem" when he
was born.
--It was founded in 100 AD.
--How did they get something that important wrong?
Secondly, the Romans kept records about everything,
like who was elected in each town and what took
place during their administrations.
--Not a single word was written about Jesus.
--Only one historian wrote about Jesus and he just
happened to be a Christian.
--Perhaps the whole Jesus story is a myth meant to
explain a set of teachings from a particular religious
cult.
----------------------------------The Right Wing is in power in Israel (for the moment).
--There is a reason that they allowed 200,000 Israelis
to build settlements (steal land and resources) in the
West Bank.
--It is so that even if the Left Wing were to come to
power, the people in those settlements will fight tooth
and nail against a two state solution.
--On the other hand, a one state solution in which
Palestinians are given equal rights, privileges and
protection under the law is unthinkable by Right Wing
Israelis since it would make Arabs the majority in
Israel.
--Think about that.
--Is it really that surprising that some Right Wing
Israelis want to exterminate the Palestinians?
4) Some Jewish Americans like yourself base their
identity on the country of Israel.
--I have been told that more and more temple
sermons are not about Isiah, Abraham or how to live
your life, but about the country of Israel.
--Mixing religion and politics is not a good thing.
--Bishop Sheen did it in the 50's and 60's and
(thankfully) he was marginalized by the Catholic
Church hierarchy.
----------------------------------In the 50's and 60's Bishop Sheen was the equivalent
of a Rush Limbaugh.
--He was an opportunist who saw that if he jumped on
the bandwagon of the Right Wing he could become
wealthy and powerful.
--However, unlike Limbaugh, Sheen's boss saw
through the veneer and took action.
--In 1968 at the height of his television program's
popularity, Cardinal Spellman stood up to the
demagog, cancelled the show and assigned him to a
small parish is Rochester, NY.
--Once all the parish priests saw there was no longer
a need to fear Sheen, they started refusing his
requests to speak at their parishes.
--Even the Society of the Propagation of the Faith told
him "We don't need you to head this organization
anymore.
--We are going in another direction." That ended a
revenue stream for Sheen that was long overdue.
--(He died a multimillionaire.)
Once the Right Wing regained power in the Catholic
Church with the election of Pope John Paul in 1978, a
movement was started to make Fulton J.
--Sheen a saint.
--Pope Francis, being the front man for "new look" of
the Right Wing, has already said that he will make
Sheen a saint if the ongoing investigation confirms the
alleged miracles.
----------------------------------Israel has become an apartheid state because it
privileges Jewish citizens and discriminates against
the non-Jewish, particularly Arab citizens of the state.
--It is very similar to apartheid South Africa because
of Jewish-only settlements, a two class ID system,
separate roads for Israeli and Palestinian citizens,
military checkpoints, discriminatory marriage law, the
West Bank barrier, the use of Palestinians as cheap
labor, inequities in infrastructure, legal rights, and
access to land and resources between Palestinians
and Israeli residents in the Israeli-occupied territories.
--After a visit to the Palestinian territories, Nelson
Mandela was asked "Does this look like South African
apartheid to you?" Mandela replied, "Oh no It is much
worse in Israel" Even Secretary of State John Kerry
noticed the apartheid problem and warned Israel
about it in April of this year in a press conference.
--Kerry got a call from the White House and the next
day said "Did I use the word 'apartheid'? Sorry, I
meant a different word." Everyone in the world knew
he was being disingenuous.
--But that is the problem here.
--The Right Wing in Israel is so powerful that they are
trying to control reality by controlling the words used
to describe it.
--The situation is very Orwellian.
--I am glad to report that there are groups in Israel like
the Jews Against Genocide that are speaking truth to
power.
----------------------------------You cannot understand Atheism without
understanding Theism, because Atheism is simply a
rejection of Theism.
--Theism claims there are two realities: One in which
we live, work, play, grow old and die.
--And a second one which cannot be seen or
measured in any way.
--However, this does not stop theistic people from
describing this second reality.
--Usually they describe it based on what they have
“felt”.
--Sometimes other people feel something different
and have a different description of the second reality.
--Sometimes that causes wars.
There is a branch of study called Theology which
defends it from people who see no need for a second
reality.
--In 1274, a theologian named Thomas Aquinas
attempted to prove the second reality using “rational
thinking”.
--One of his arguments was “The First Cause”.
--It goes like this:
1) Everything has a cause, which means the Universe
has a cause.
2) God is the cause of the Universe.
3) God did not have a cause.
--God is a mystery that cannot be understood.
However, opponents to his view put forth this counter
argument:
1) Everything has a cause, which means the Universe
has a cause.
2) We are working on the cause of the Universe.
3) At the moment that cause is a mystery.
--When we find it, we will try to find out what caused
that and there will be a new mystery.
So, if one were to define Atheism, is would be the
position that there is one reality, it is vast and
mysterious and we are working on understanding it.
----------------------------------You cannot understand Atheism without
understanding Theism, because Atheism is simply a
rejection of Theism.
--Theism claims there are two realities: One in which
we live, work, play, grow old and die.
--And a second one which cannot be seen or
measured in any way.
--However, this does not stop theistic people from
describing this second reality.
--Usually they describe it based on what they have
“felt”.
--Sometimes other people feel something different
and have a different description of the second reality.
--Sometimes that causes wars.
There is a branch of study called Theology which
defends it from people who see no need for a second
reality.
--In 1274, a theologian named Thomas Aquinas
attempted to prove the second reality using “rational
thinking”.
--One of his arguments was “The First Cause”.
--It goes like this:
1) Everything has a cause, which means the Universe
has a cause.
2) God is the cause of the Universe.
3) God did not have a cause.
--God is a mystery that cannot be understood.
However, opponents to his view put forth this counter
argument:
1) Everything has a cause, which means the Universe
has a cause.
2) We are working on the cause of the Universe.
3) At the moment that cause is a mystery.
--When we find it, we will try to find out what caused
that and there will be a new mystery.
So, if one were to define Atheism, is would be the
position that there is one reality, it is vast and
mysterious and we are working on understanding it.
----------------------------------A woman without her man is nothing
A woman, without her man, is nothing
A woman: without her, man is nothing
-----------------------------------
Hormones in the brain that produce a feeling of well
being: Dopamine, Serotonin and Oxytosin.
Hormones in the brain associated with stress:
Cortisol
----------------------------------Prilosec was invented by AstraZeneca in 1979.
--They patented it.
--It was for indigestion.
--When the patent was running out and the generic
drug companies were chomping at the bit to start
selling it for 1/17th of what AstraZeneca was
charging, AstraZeneca changed the chemical
combination slightly, called the "new" drug Nexium
and hired an ad agency to bombard the airwaves with
commercials about how much better Nexium was
than Prilosec.
--AstraZeneca's profits on the new drug were 300%
higher than on the old drug.
----------------------------------Education should inspire students to be more curious,
to read more, to learn independently, to enjoy thinking
critically, to question authorities, and to challenge
illegitimate authorities.
----------------------------------The gorilla study (counting the number of basketball
passes, gorilla enters the frame) illustrates two
important facts about our minds: we can be blind to
the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness.
----------------------------------The nuclear weapons on board just one of our Trident
submarines contain eight times the firepower
expended in all of World War II.
Source “Innumeracy”
-----------------------------------
Modern Homo sapiens is probably less than 10 trillion
seconds old
Source “Innumeracy”
----------------------------------Millions work slavishly at dissatisfying jobs, and
become depressed and passive aggressive.
--With enough helplessness, hopelessness, passivity,
boredom, fear, isolation, and dehumanization, we
rebel and refuse to comply.
--Some of us rebel by becoming inattentive.
--Others become aggressive.
--Many eat, drink and gamble too much.
--Some become addicted to drugs (both illegal and
prescription).
----------------------------------Capitalism accumulates wealth by way of slave labor,
slave wages, debt bondage, unjust land confiscation
and the expropriation of common lands and resources
into private hands.
----------------------------------In capitalist societies we are all conditioned to see the
world in terms of individual economic self-interest
rather than in terms of common human good,
planetary limits, health and equilibrium?
----------------------------------Embrace change.
Be the flame.
----------------------------------We need to transcend systems rooted in human
arrogance and greed that lead us to believe that any
individual is more valuable than another, that any
group of people should dominate another group, or
that people have a right to exploit the living world
without regard for the consequences for the
ecosystem.
--Because each of us has within us the capacity for
constructive and destructive actions -- for good and
evil -- our collective task is to shape a society that
helps us act with caution and compassion.
----------------------------------Walgreen, the largest drugstore chain in the United
States with more than 8,700 drugstores spread
across the nation, is on the verge of moving its
corporate headquarters to Switzerland (but not its
stores) as part of a merger with Alliance Boots, the
European drugstore chain.
--That will cost every American taxpayer about $4
billion over five years, according to an analysis by
Americans for Tax Fairness
The tax dodge likewise means more money for
Walgreen’s investors and top executives.
----------------------------------Quote from David Norcom of NorCap Advisors, a
Dallas-based investment firm.
--“Hurricanes, Tornados and Earthquakes are an
asset.
--How many millions of gallons of water do you think it
takes to frack one well? The total amount of clean
water that could be spent on a single fracking well
over its use is 10 million gallons.
--Those of you in California know how bad it's getting
there, but you need to have a portfolio of water stocks
in your account.
--If you had bought water stocks at the beginning of
this year, they're up without dividends between fifteen
and thirty percent."
----------------------------------Injustice, Income inequality, An educational system
that fosters ignorance
----------------------------------Mexico: In 1846, shortly after the annexation of
Texas, President James Polk ordered U.S.
--troops into disputed lands, precipitating a war
against Mexico.
--The war ended with the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
in 1848.
--This is what Chicano activists mean when they say
"the border crossed them." Today, 33.5 million people
of Mexican origin live in the United States.
Puerto Rico: The United States invaded Puerto Rico
in 1898 during the Spanish American War and has
retained control of the island ever since.
--More people of Puerto Rican descent currently live
in the United States than on the island.
Cuba: And yet somehow, U.S.
--politicians viewed themselves as liberators.
--Later U.S.
--administrations would use the naval base to jail
suspected terrorists and hold them indefinitely without
trial, also submitting them to torture tactics, according
to Human Rights
Invaded and occupied Cuba two more times.
the United States invaded and occupied Cuba again
in 1906 and once more in 1912.
--It retained the legal authority to intervene in Cuba's
affairs until the 1933 Sergeant's Revolt overthrew
U.S.-backed dictator Gerardo Machado.
--The CIA organized and financed a group of antiFidel Castro exiles in an ill-fated attempt to overthrow
the revolutionary government.
Nicaragua: The United States invaded Nicaragua in
1912 and occupied the country until 1933.
--Shortly after the U.S.
--forces left, Anastasio Somoza took over, launching a
decades-long dynastic dictatorship with U.S.
--support.
Haiti: Woodrow Wilson ordered the Marines to invade
and occupy Haiti in 1915 after the assassination of
the Haitian president.
--The troops didn't leave until 1934.
--Port-au-Prince, The U.S.
--military returned in 1994.
Dominican Republic: Mainly to collect debts, the
United States invaded the Dominican Republic in
1916.
--The occupation lasted eight years.
Guatemala: At the behest of United Fruit Company, a
U.S.
--corporation with extensive holdings in Central
America, the CIA helped engineer the overthrow of
the Guatemalan government in 1954, ushering in
decades of civil war that resulted in the loss of
hundreds of thousands of lives.
Nicaraugua: When the leftwing Sandinista
government rose to power in Nicaragua, it did not
please Washington.
--In 1979, the United States began years of financing
the "Contras," a rightwing group responsible for
committing atrocities and smuggling drugs into the
United States with the Reagan administration's
knowledge.
Brazil: The administration of Lyndon B.
--Johnson assisted the overthrow of the
democratically elected Brazilian government in 1964.
--The resulting military dictatorship, which tortured
thousands of opponents and "disappeared" hundreds,
ruled the country until 1985.
Chile: General Augusto Pinochet, with the support of
the Nixon administration, overthrew the
democratically elected government of Salvador
Allende, ushering in nearly two decades of violent
dictatorship.
Argentina: When the military overthrew the Argentine
government and installed a dictatorship in 1976, the
Gerald Ford administration responded by offering its
wholehearted support and financial assistance.
--The dictatorship lasted until 1983.
----------------------------------Once a mouse noticed that the farmer had set a
mousetrap.
--She alerted a chicken, a sheep and a cow.
--But they replied: "The mousetrap is your own
problem.
--It has nothing to do with us"
Later a snake was caught in the mousetrap and bit
the farmer's wife.
In order to cure the wife, the chicken was killed to
make soup.
--Then the sheep was cooked to feed everyone who
came to visit the farmer's wife.
--Finally, the cow was killed too to provide a decent
meal to the guests, who came to the wife’s funeral.
All this time the mouse watched the scene through a
hole in the wall and thought about all the things that
are somebody else’s problem.
----------------------------------Around 1895 Frederick W.
--Taylor invented “scientific management” in which
each worker only did a small part of the process.
--
----------------------------------The invisible hand of the marketplace never picks up
the check.
----------------------------------Our life experiences seem to be divided into what you
do and what happens to you.
--Sometimes what you do determines what happens
to you, like you go skiing and you break your leg.
--Sometimes what happens to you has nothing to do
with what you did, like waiting for a red light and being
rear ended by a drunk driver.
To put it another way, we each have two futures: the
one that is coming at us that is out of our control and
the one we are creating by what we do now.
--We each get to decide which future we want to live
in.
----------------------------------I have heard a number of theories about Ahab and
what the whale represented.
--Here are a few:
1) the white whale as symbolizes the inconceivable.
--Ahab sought to kill it because he couldn't handle
living in a universe in which there are things that
cannot be known.
2) Ahab is a distorted reflection of the Whale.
--The Whale is a reflection of Ahab.
--Both are scared and marked by the world.
--After Ahab rejects fellow feeling, rejects empathy for
his fellow human beings by refusing the captain of the
Rachel's request to help find his son and others who
are lost, the Pequod is becalmed.
--Ahab,in rejecting human solidarity has sealed
everyone's fate.
--Ahab nails the doubloon to the mast.
--The wind comes up-and now it is as if a one-way
door has opened.
--Using the wind, the Pequod sails anew after Moby
Dick.
--There is no turning back.
-3) There is a interesting moment in Patrick Stewart's
1998 interpretation of the "Is Ahab, Ahab?" speech.
--He openly displays remorse over his fixation on
Moby Dick, sees himself as being completely in the
wrong, and is near weeping at his own flawed
thinking.
--He grabs Starbuck and in desperation asks "Who’s
to doom, when the judge himself is dragged to the
bar?" realizing that he was wrong to condemn a fellow
creature to death.
--Just as he is about to turn the ship around and go
home the whale is sighted.
--Ahab's hatred overtakes him and he chooses to
follow through with killing the whale.
--In other words, we are all at every waking moment
facing a crossroads, offered a choice between holding
on or letting go.
-4) Ahab was a god-fearing but hateful man, thereby
conflicted within himself.
--To resolve the conflict, he projected all of his hatred
and everything that was eating at his inner being onto
the white whale.
-----------------------------------As of 6/11/14, Buffalo is the fourth poorest city in the
US.
--
The Food Bank fed 99,000 people per month this
year.
--That is 50% more than the previous year.
--The reason for this is that food stamps have been
cut.
-----------------------------------Dalit: the lowest caste in India.
----------------------------------Alla Prima: A style of painting in which you don’t take
breaks to let the paint dry when making a painting.
--It is finished in one session.
--Caravaggio painted this way
----------------------------------“I am threatening you so you will shut up stating the
lie that men threaten you.”
----------------------------------It is not a promenade down a tree lined boulevard
with a fine woman and a white poodle.
-----------------------------------There is no knowledge without conversation.
----------------------------------A sad finale played off-key on a broken-down saloon
piano in the outskirts of a forgotten ghost town.
----------------------------------If life is like a video game, women, like money and
status, are just part of the reward we get for doing
well
----------------------------------Afterlife: When you blow out the candle, where did the
fire go?
----------------------------------I was dead for a billion years before I was born and it
didn’t bother me on bit.
-- – Mark Twain
----------------------------------“dum vivimus, vivamus” While we live, let us live
----------------------------------Sartre's famous quote "Existence precedes essence".
-Imagine you live in a much earlier time period and you
need to cut down a tree.
--You sit and stare at the tree and finally an idea
comes into your mind "I will design a tool.
--I will call it an axe." So you manage to make one.
--You brought it into existence.
--You noticed that the idea came first.
--(Essence preceded existence) For centuries
humans thought that model applied to everything in
the universe, including humans.
--(God had an idea of you before he made you.)
However, Sartre is saying that once Hume
demolished that particular concept of God, it opened
the door to a new way of thinking: First we exist and
THEN we invent a reason for our existence.
--It is a very liberating conclusion to come to.
--It means that you are in charge of who you are.
--You invent your own purpose in life.
--It is not something you "discover" or something
"revealed to you".
--The purpose I invented for myself is to struggle to
make the world a better place.
--Part of that struggle is to see what people find
"unbearable" and to help them deal with it.
--That's where rationality comes in: First we
understand the world then we seek to change it.
-----------------------------------
Are we at the mercy of the way the world is or are we
in charge of the way we want the world to be?
----------------------------------You’re on Earth.
--There’s no cure for that.
Although, being organized helps.
----------------------------------Today the world is going to give me some jobs.
--And I am going to do a good job with what I am
given.
-----------------------------------There was a pause, like a tick missing in eternity
----------------------------------Working class financial woes:
Healthcare, housing, education, nutrition
----------------------------------Television, movies, magazines, advertising, music
videos, video games and clothing, among others
reinforce one message: that women and girls will be
judged for how they look, not what they do.
Bombarded by sexualized media portrayals of
women, boys grow up learning to treat women as
objects, which also makes them less satisfied in their
adult romantic relationships.
----------------------------------In America the individual is measured by personal
achievement, wealth, self image and consumerism.
----------------------------------"Rarely does one have the privilege of witnessing
vulgar ostentation displayed upon such a scale." Tom
Perkins speaking about his 288 foot yacht, the largest
privately owned sailboat in the world.
-----------------------------------
Patriarchy is the domination over women by men as
opposed to companionship, partnership and
cooperation between the sexes.
--Give women control over their bodies and the
population of the Earth will go down to a sustainable
level.
--Capitalism is supported by three pillars: Patriarchy,
Racism and Advertising.
--To weaken and remove Patriarchy is to deal a
serious blow to Capitalism.
----------------------------------We are either going to embrace new technologies,
along with their limitations and threats, or slink into an
era of magical thinking.
--New technologies are always accompanied by new
risks and at least one deeply unsettling fact: once you
invent something you cannot uninvent it.
----------------------------------Denialism is often a natural response to this loss of
control, an attempt to scale the world to dimensions
we can comprehend.
--Denialism is denial writ large—when an entire
segment of society, often struggling with the trauma of
change, turns away from reality in favor of a more
comfortable lie.
----------------------------------As more and more Americans have seen their
standard of living sink and their stress factors
increase, they have taken to the all-purpose, allAmerican sedative - food - in a big way.
--As social fear and insecurity rise, mental health
declines.
--Apparently, so does physical health.
The obesity epidemic helps American capitalism in
two ways.
--- On one side of the coin, it creates a population that
is more compliant, tired, sick, self-hating and resigned
to its misery.
--The sheer volume and shrillness of advertising
propaganda add to the burgeoning worry-hurryovereat mental health problem in the United States.
----------------------------------Just as in the late 1920s and throughout the 30s, the
need for investors to make profit is outstripping the
ability of the majority of people to pay for
commodities, spiraling the human economy into a
global economic contraction.
----------------------------------We suffer primarily not from our vices or our
weaknesses, but from our illusions.
--- We are haunted, not by reality, but by those
images we have put in place of reality.
--- To discover our illusions will not solve the
problems of our world.
--- But if we do not discover them, we will never
discover our real problems.
----------------------------------Demanding more than the world can give us, we
require that something be fabricated to make up for
the world’s deficiency.
--There was a time when the reader of an unexciting
newspaper would remark, “How dull is the world
today” Nowadays he says, “What a dull newspaper”
----------------------------------The United States has lost approximately 42,400
factories since 2001 About 75 percent of those
factories employed over 500 people when they were
still in operation.
----------------------------------Dell Inc.
--- has announced plans to dramatically expand its
operations in China with an investment of over $100
billion over the next decade.
--- AP Source: WSJ Dell has announced that it will be
closing its last large U.S.
--- manufacturing facility in Winston-Salem, North
Carolina.
--- Approximately 900 jobs will be lost.
----------------------------------The Census Bureau says 43.6 million Americans are
now living in poverty, which is the highest number of
poor Americans in the 51 years that records have
been kept.
----------------------------------I’m angry that, when a nine- year- old girl in Brazil
was raped, the doctors who performed an abortion on
her, and her family who approved the abortion, were
excommunicated by the Catholic Church .
--And I’m angry that there was no excommunication
for her stepfather who raped her
----------------------------------Why, in our country, are those who are driven by
personal greed and narrow self-interest empowered
over those who extol social values like kindness,
generosity, compassion, sharing, empathy, and
community building?
----------------------------------Many cities display what capitalism left behind after it
became profitable for capitalists to relocate and for
new capital investments to happen more elsewhere.
----------------------------------The reality is that with enough helplessness,
hopelessness, passivity, boredom, fear, isolation, and
dehumanization, we rebel and refuse to comply.
--- Some of us rebel by becoming inattentive.
--- Others become aggressive.
--- In large numbers we eat, drink and gamble too
much.
--- Still others become addicted to drugs, illicit and
prescription.
--- Millions work slavishly at dissatisfying jobs,
become depressed and passive aggressive, while no
small number of us can’t cut it and become homeless
and appear crazy.
----------------------------------A teacher’s job is to inspire students to be more
curious, to read more, to learn independently, to enjoy
thinking critically, to question authorities, and to
challenge illegitimate authorities.
----------------------------------Halfway through the video, a woman wearing a gorilla
suit appears, crosses the court, thumps her chest,
and moves on.
--Indeed, the viewers who fail to see the gorilla are
initially sure that it was not there—they cannot
imagine missing such a striking event.
--The gorilla study illustrates two important facts about
our minds: we can be blind to the obvious, and we are
also blind to our blindness.
----------------------------------Dismantling and changing patriarchal culture is work
that men and women must do together.
--Women can be as wedded to patriarchal thinking
and action as men.
----------------------------------Obedience is the foundation upon which patriarchy
stands.
--It also includes the repression of all emotions except
fear; the destruction of individual willpower; and the
repression of thinking whenever it departs from the
authority figure’s way of thinking
----------------------------------Capitalism is a commitment to unlimited accumulation
of capital and to an order that places artificially
generated private wants over individual and social
needs.
--Capitalism cannot be “greened”.
-----------------------------------An ideology is a picture we take of the world and then
pretend is real - We do this by ignoring the camera we
took the picture with and all of the other mechanisms
and relationships that had to exist in order for that
camera to land in our hands.
----------------------------------Thought is saved from the fate of merely smashing its
face repeatedly against a mirror: its redemption lies in
the broken and bloody shards on the floor—music
----------------------------------Adorno insists that Beethoven’s music is Hegelian
philosophy in a truer form than Hegel’s philosophy
itself could ever be.
----------------------------------I dreamt - marvellous error - that I had a beehive here
inside my heart.
--And the golden bees were making white combs and
sweet honey from my old failures.”
I thought my fire was out,
and stirred the ashes….
I burnt my fingers.”
- both from Antonio Machado
----------------------------------Challenge the assimillationist’s logic of the struggle
for marriage equality.
--We cannot assume that once outsiders are allowed
to move into the circle of the mainstream heteropatriarchal institution of marriage that the struggle has
been won.
-- Angela Davis
----------------------------------…the social conditions that make mental illness
occur.
----------------------------------Here is the difference between Dante, Milton, and me.
--They
wrote about hell and never saw the place.
--I wrote about
Chicago after looking the town over for years and
years.
- Carl Sandburg
----------------------------------Before 1492 Jesus was represented like an Islamic
person.
--However, soldiers coming back from the Crusades
were having nightmares that they had "killed Jesus" in
their battles.
--So Pope Alexander VI ordered the destruction of all
art depicting a Middle Eastern Jesus and
commissioned a number of paintings depicting a
European Jesus.
-- His son, Cardinal Cesare Borgia, was the model for
these paintings.
-----------------------------------
If you talk to a man in a language he understands, he
understands with his head.
--If you talk to him in his language, he understands
with his heart.
- Nelson Madela
----------------------------------The glaciers tell us that atmospheric carbon, before
humans developed an industrial economy, fluctuated
between 180 and 280 PPM.
-By 1958, when we began sampling atmospheric CO2
at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, the
atmospheric CO2 number was 315 PPM.
-In November 1963, when President Kennedy was
assassinated, the number had already risen to 319
PPM.
-In 1979 the CO2 count was 337 PPM.
-During Reagan’s last year in office the C02 count had
hit 351 PPM, crossing the 350PPM threshold that
climatologists warn will cause catastrophic climate
change.
-By the time Reagan left office, the number was
352PPM.
In March 1997, with the CO2 count hovering at 363
PPM.
In December of that year, with the CO2 count hitting
365 PPM, the group met again in Japan, adopting the
Kyoto protocols, with every UN member nation except
Andorra, Canada, South Sudan, and the United
States signing on, committing to cutting overall
emissions of greenhouse gasses to five percent
below 1997 levels.
-In 2008 with CO2 levels hit 385 PPM.
In 2013 the CO2 count at Mauna Loa is at 397 PPM
----------------------------------In 1976 the secret police in Argentina arrested Father
Francisco Jalics, Father Orlando Yorio and Pope
Francis (Bishop Jorge Bergoglio) for the crime of
spreading liberation theology which denounced the
inequality of wealth in the country.
--Father Jalics and Father Yorio were tortured and
imprisoned.
--Bishop Bergoglio (Pope Francis) was released after
questioning.
--After their release both priests were convinced that
the future Pope Francis ratted on them to save
himself.
--Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t, but in 2001 when
people in the Secret Police and the Junta were
arrested and put on trial for crimes against humanity,
the future Pope Francis refused to testify.
--Perhaps he did not want his story to come out.
--Another interesting note is that after he became
Pope, the Vatican sent numerous emissaries to the
monastery where Father Jalics was staying.
--The aging priest suddenly changed his story and
said “Pope Francis didn’t have anything to do with our
imprisonment and torture.” The other priest Father
Yorio isn’t about to change his story.
--He died over a decade ago of natural causes.
--So, am I skeptical now when Pope Francis speaks
out against economic inequality behind the safety
shield of the Vatican? Yes, I am.
----------------------------------The states that want to get rid of "under-performing"
teachers should try a little experiment first: take all the
"high-performing" teachers and put them in the lowperforming schools and see if that improves the
grades; and at the same time put all the lowperforming teachers in the high-performing schools
(you know, the ones that always seem to be in the
richest districts), and see if that lowers student
performance.
--My guess would be that it would not and that the
greatest single factor tied to a students performance
is his/her socio-economic background.
----------------------------------People who say something is impossible should get
out of the way of the people who are doing it.
--As it starts to happen, the people who were saying
"it is not going to work", will start saying "I am going
along with it even though it is a longshot".
--When it finally happens they will say "I knew it was a
good idea from the very beginning".
----------------------------------Corporations aren’t necessarily evil, though plenty are
diabolically evil, but they can’t help themselves.
--They’re just doing what they’re supposed to do for
the benefit of their shareholders.
--Shell Oil can’t help but loot Nigeria and the Arctic
and cook the climate.
--That’s what shareholders demand.
--BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and other mining giants can’t
resist mining Australia’s abundant coal and exporting
it to China and India.
--Mining accounts for 19% of Australia’s GDP and
substantial employment even as coal combustion is
the single worst driver of global warming.
--IKEA can’t help but level the forests of Siberia and
Malaysia to feed the Chinese mills building their flimsy
disposable furniture (IKEA is the third largest
consumer of lumber in the world).
--Apple can’t help it if the cost of extracting the “rare
earths” it needs to make millions of new iThings each
year is the destruction of the eastern Congo —
violence, rape, slavery, forced induction of child
soldiers, along with poisoning local waterways.
--Monsanto and DuPont and Syngenta and Bayer
Crop Science have no choice but to wipe out bees,
butterflies, birds, small farmers and extinguish crop
diversity to secure their grip on the world’s food
supply while drenching the planet in their Roundups
and Atrazines and neonicotinoids.
----------------------------------Drone strikes:
2010: 122
2012: 48
2013: 20
----------------------------------5/10/13 scientists at Mauna Loa Observatory on the
big island of Hawaii announced that global CO2
emissions had crossed a threshold at 400 parts per
million (ppm) for the first time in millions of years
1958 reading: 315 ppm
Growth rate over past three years 2.2 ppm
We are screwed when it reached 450 ppm.
-----------------------------------True heroism resides in these seemingly small ways
of organizing one's life in order to survive in crazy
times without losing dignity.
----------------------------------The most important thing in communication is to hear
what isn't being said.
----------------------------------I remember kissing my first woman and smoking my
first cigarette on the same day.
--I learned an important lesson that day, never since
have I wasted any more time smoking.
----------------------------------But when I don't smoke I scarcely feel as if I'm living.
--I don't feel as if I'm living unless I'm killing myself.
----------------------------------The US gives 1.3 billion to the Egyptian Military (not
the Egyptian government)
----------------------------------Video game put out by the Pentagon: America’s Army
has over 6 million registered users
Also, there is a war game that uses items that appear
in the news
to enhance the battles in the game (called Kumar
War)
----------------------------------Happy Veterans Day a/k/a "Support current and
deceased soldiers who haven't committed atrocities or
participated in military rape and don't you ever
question American foreign policy” day.
----------------------------------The results of a diet burdened by high fructose corn
syrup, greasy sodium-laced fats and feedlot-fattened
meats is our historically unprecedented obesity
epidemic, which in turn fuels a plethora of health
problems ranging from cancer and heart disease to
nervous system disorders.
--Add to that a mélange of chemical additives and
pesticides in our food, and persistent environmental
toxins, all of which contribute to cancer and a host of
other ailments.
----------------------------------Fantasy provides a frame or set of coordinates for our
desire.
--In so doing, it tells us how to desire.
--– Slavov Zizek
----------------------------------GMO Foods:
Soy
Cottonseed
Corn
Canola oil
Alfalfa
Sugar from sugar beets
Some varieties of zucchini
Crookneck squash
Hawaiian papaya
Wild Plants the have become immune to Roundup:
Horseweed
Rip Gut Brome
Annual Blue Grass
Goose Grass
Pig Weed (grows up to 3 inches per day)
----------------------------------Percentage of the electorate who voted in the 2013
Elections:
Norway 78%
Germany 72%
US 53%
One of the reasons is the well funded political class is
pouring money into election ads.
--85% of them were negative ads which sent the
message that both of the candidates were
inadequate.
--Not surprisingly, people felt that voting was useless.
--That’s not an accident.
--Fostering voter apathy keeps the well funded
political class in power.
-----------------------------------An economic system that magnifies human greed and
encourages short-term thinking, while pretending
there are no physical limits on human consumption, is
a death cult.
--To endorse capitalism is to sign onto a suicide pact.
--We need not pretend there exists a fully elaborated
plan for a replacement system that we can take off
the shelf and implement immediately.
----------------------------------We will not successfully reject one hierarchical
system without rejecting all hierarchical systems.
--Holding onto any system that depends on one group
claiming dominance over another undermines our
ability to shape a decent future.
----------------------------------- blockading fracking activity in Balcombe
- interfering with Arctic drilling preparations in Russian
waters (at tremendous personal cost)
- taking tar sands operators to court for violating
indigenous sovereignty
----------------------------------The power of ideas:
I would never have thought that such a storm would
rise from
Rome over one simple scrap of paper.
- Martin Luther
----------------------------------If you travelled to a city, you could write a poem like
William Blake did after he took a walk through
London:
I wander through the chartered streets
and mark in every face I meet
marks of weakness
marks of woe
In every voice
in every newborn infant's cry of fear
mind forged manacles I hear.
After that you could take a walk in your tranquil
countryside and write a poem like William Wordsworth
did:
I feel a blessed mood,
In which the burden of
the heavy and weary weight
of the unintelligible world,
Is lightened.
A power of harmony,
and the deep power of joy,
lets me see into the life of all things.
----------------------------------Each of us has two futures:
1) The one that is out there that is going to happen to
us that we have no control over
2) the one that we are creating now, in the present,
that determines what is going to happen to us.
Each of us has to decide which future we want to live
in.
The people in power who want things to stay the
same and not have their power challenged, reward
people like Fukuyama.
--Look at his resume, educated at Cornell University,
Yale and Harvard and then hired at Rand
Corporation, George Mason University, Johns
Hopkins University, and Stanford University which are
all heavily funded by wealthy individuals and
corporations.
--It is understandable that he would come up with a
theory supporting the first version of the future.
Now let's look at people who live in the second
version of the future:
- Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning
- The people from the Occupy Movement
- The people who help defend homes from bank
foreclosure
- The people who support labor unions that are losing
more and more power
- The people who take over schools and libraries that
have been shut down and run them for free in poor
neighborhoods.
- The people who grow food on abandoned land in
community gardens
- The people in worker owned businesses like
Republic Windows in Chicago, not to mention the
Mondragon Corporation in Spain which is an
enormous worker owned company that is a big as
General Motors
- The countless food co-ops throughout the US
- The countless credit unions that are worker owned
- The central bank of North Dakota which is owned by
the people of North Dakota and puts all the profits into
the North Dakota treasury to keep taxes down
It's understandable that the above don't get
publicized, much less applauded in the mainstream
media.
--It's owned by the ruling class.
--And since people don't hear of these things they
easily drift into the first way of seeing the future and
they buy into counter-revolutionary concepts like
"Fukuyama's the end of history...
--humans will never come up with a better system for
living in the world".
----------------------------------Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.
- W.
--Somerset Maugham
----------------------------------"Master, the town bullies grabbed my hat, put it over
horse poo-poo and stomped on it.
--I did nothing."
"It is the bullies who have diminished themselves.
--You did the right thing remaining unmoved and
resolute."
"I understand.
--One thing though, would you change hats with me?"
----------------------------------Wisdom is not gained by knowing what is right.
--Wisdom is
gained by practicing what is right, and noticing what
happens
when that practice succeeds and when it fails.
----------------------------------The top 1 percent in the United States own 40 percent
of the nation’s wealth while the bottom 80 percent
own only 7 percent, as Joseph E.
--Stiglitz wrote in “The Price of Inequality.”
----------------------------------Before you know the meaning of life
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be.
Before you know the meaning of life,
you must travel where a homeless man
sleeps under a bridge.
You must see how this could be you.
You must see how he too is someone
who journeys through the night with plans
and a simple breath that keeps him alive.
Before you know the meaning of life,
you must know sorrow.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Eventually the meaning of life will start to arrive.
It will tie your shoes and send you out
into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread.
It will raise its head
from the crowd of the world to say
“It is I you have been looking for”
And it will go with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.
----------------------------------We live in a culture in which stigma or discrimination
is highly coded.
--There is a lot of language that obscures by adopting
a rhetoric that packages the aggression into a
seemingly innocuous point of view.
-----------------------------------
Providing information to help someone figure out
what's good for them is different from persuading
them to follow your advice.
- Larry Scott
----------------------------------They used 141 lbs of Uranium in the first atomic
bomb.
--Only .02 ounce was converted into energy.
----------------------------------What power is it that makes the Hindu woman burn
herself unpon the funeral pyre of her husband? Her
religion.
--What holds the Turkish woman in the haren? Her
religion.
--By what power do the Mormons perpetuate their
system of polygamy.
--Their religion.
Man himself, could not do this.; but when he declares
“Thus sayeth the Lord”, of course he can do it.
-- Elizabeth Cady Stanton
----------------------------------130924 President Obama: "The United States of
America is prepared to use all elements of our power,
including military force, to secure our core interests in
the region.
--We will confront external aggression against our
allies and partners, as we did in the Gulf War.
--We will ensure the free flow of energy from the
region to the world."
----------------------------------Death is certain.
-There is no siren-song of Paradise and no Hell.
Life on this Earth with all its mystery
and beauty and pain
is to be lived intensely.
-We stumble and get up.
We are sad
confident
insecure
lonely
joyful
loving.
-There is nothing more,
but I want nothing more.
----------------------------------The ongoing war of words illustrates that Syria is not
just a civil war, but a propaganda war being fought for
competing geopolitical interests.
--The end-result of this tug of war between prointerventionist & anti-interventionist narratives has
been the victory of neither, & thus, the entrenchment
of violence amidst a Syrian stalemate...In short:
the U.S.
--gets to sideline its gas export competitors while
undermining Iranian influence;
Israel gets its regional enemies embroiled in warwithout-end;
Russia gets its arms sales to Iran & Syria;
the UN gets to rack up its depleted ‘peacekeeping’
credentials over self-congratulatory chemical
weapons negotiations.
-And as the world has watched the debate over
intervention drag on like an obscene international
game of ping pong, the military-industrial complex
rakes in huge profits from rocketing share prices.
Meanwhile, Syrian civilians continue to be killed
largely by conventional, not chemical, weapons.
--According to the latest UN human rights report, both
Syrian government forces and Free Syrian Army
rebels—& not just those affiliated to al-Qaeda—have
committed war crimes, although government forces
are culpable in the vast bulk of the violence including
at least 8 massacres.
--But under the feel-good smokescreen of chemical
‘peacemaking’ resulting in the rightly-lauded
framework agreement, the U.S.
--& Russia are still fuelling the conflict by stepping up
military support to their favored sides.
----------------------------------Capitalism needs three things to work:
1) Labor
2) Natural Resources
3) Investment
Real wealth is created through labor, however, under
capitalism there is a second type of wealth that
compliments labor wealth called investment or
financial wealth.
--For capitalism to work well you need:
1) Labor (comprising 70% of the total wealth)
2) Unlimited, free natural resources
3) Financial wealth (comprising 30% of the total
wealth)
Starting with Ronald Regan's deregulation policies,
Capitalism became more and more finance based.
--People like Albert Dunlap took over companies like
Sunbeam, Scott Paper and Crown Zellerbach, fired
half of the employees and forced those remaining to
work harder for less pay.
--Then he sold those companies at a huge profit.
--No real wealth was created, just financial wealth.
--In NY City people still buy expensive apartments,
leave them empty for a year and then resell them for
a profit.
--Again nothing is created except financial wealth.
--Banks pay one percent on deposits, but loan that
same money out and charge 27 percent on credit
cards.
--And I will say it again, nothing is created except
financial wealth.
--The sad thing is that in America 65% of the wealth is
now financial and that percentage is rising.
--That wealth is not based on labor or manufacturing,
it is based on nothing.
--The investment class sees the a crash coming and
they are trying to sustain the value of their financial
wealth by reducing wages, social security, social
programs and education funding.
--In other words, they are trying to squeeze more
labor out of people without increasing their wealth.
--In Europe the same thing is called "austerity
measures".
--It is a dark time to be living in if you are working
class and poor.
--I know plenty of people who have two jobs and
barely get by.
--I know people in their 30's who still live with their
parents because they would not be able to live alone
on their wages.
Capitalism will fail is because it "has to grow" to
support the investment class which now controls such
a large percentage of the wealth and remember
investment wealth is based on nothing.
--Secondly the days of unlimited, free natural
resources are gone.
--Mountain tops are being removed for their coal.
--(Tough luck for the environment) "Liquid oil" is
running out and fracked shale oil is supposed to take
its place.
--(More tough luck for the environment)
If humanity is to survive, something will have to
replace capitalism and the horrible job the investment
class is doing running things.
--The new system will have to be environmentally
friendly and labor based.
--And because it will have to be labor based, the
laborers (the working class) will have the final say on
what is produced, how it is produced and how it will
affect the environment.
----------------------------------When you consider that God could have commanded
anything he wanted.
--The Ten Commandments have to rank as one of the
great missed moral opportunities of all time.
--How different history would have been had he
clearly and unmistakably forbidden war, tyranny,
taking over other people’s countries, slavery,
exploitation of workers, cruelty to animals and the
oppression of women.
----------------------------------“Normal” is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for
work, driving through traffic in a car you are still
paying for, in order to get to a job that you need so
you can pay for the clothes, the car and the house
that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in
it.
----------------------------------Corporations exploit, pollute, impoverish, repress, kill
and lie to make money.
--They throw poor people out of homes, let the
insured die, wage useless wars for profit, and pollute
the ecosystem.
--They support politicians that slash social assistance
programs, and gut public education.
--On top of all that they try to crush all popular
movements that seek justice for working men and
women.
-----------------------------------How the Occupy Movement has transformed itself:
Helping people defend their homes from foreclosure
Supporting labor unions that are losing more and
more power
Occupying schools and libraries that have been shut
down
Growing food on abandoned land in community
gardens
----------------------------------If we are going to teach creation science as an
alternative to evolution, then we should also teach the
stork theory as an alternative to biological
reproduction.
----------------------------------The Ten Commandments:
Do people really, in this day and age, want to obey a
God who, like a Third World dictator, insists above all
on unconditional, absolute reverence to Himself?
----------------------------------Forgetting is the minds way of assuring that we are
not tethered to our past but that we are able to live in
the present moment.
-----------------------------------The Bible teaches that women brought sin and death
into the world, that she precipitated the fall of the
race, that she was arraigned before the judgment seat
of Heaven, tried, condemned and sentenced.
--Marriage for her was to be a condition of bondage,
maternity a period of suffering and in silence and
subjection, she was to play the role of being
dependent on a man for her material needs and the
information that she might desire.
-- Elizabeth Cady Stanton
----------------------------------Some people live in mental cages.
--At first when you open the door, the bird stays
inside.
--It has internalized its imprisonment.
--It takes time for it to summon the courage to fly out.
----------------------------------The purpose of Fox News is to ferment dissent in the
form of a relentless national contrarianism to all things
Democratic to advance its ultimate objective of
creating a deliberately misinformed body politic whose
fear, anger, distrust and discontent is the fodder upon
which it sustains its parasitic existence.
----------------------------------Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have
existed if labor had not first existed.
--Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much
the higher consideration.
- Abraham Lincoln
-----------------------------------
The Common Woman
She walks around all day quietly,
but underneath it she’s electric;
angry energy inside a passive form.
-On weekends she dreams
of becoming a tree
a tree
that dreams it is ground up
and sent to the paper factory,
where it lies helpless in sheets,
until it dreams of becoming a paper airplane, and
rises on its own current;
where it turns into a bird,
a great coasting bird
that dreams of becoming more free, even than that
a feather, finally, or
a piece of air with lightning in it.
The common woman is as common
as a thunderstorm.
----------------------------------Women, your body is not yours.
--Your faces are controlled by the beauty industry.
--Pluck, wax, paint, design, hide.
--Never show your real face.
--It’s too risky.
--You are too fragile to show the world your faults –
you must look presentable.
--You must blend in to the background whilst men
take center stage.
Your breasts are ever present in newspapers,
magazines, pornography.
-- What was once designed purely for nourishing a
child, is now something to be used against you.
--If you do not fit the mould of a perfect breast – not
too small, not too big but perfectly formed – you must
recline on a surgeons table to be nipped, tucked and
sucked.
-Your wombs – a place of warmth and safety for a
child – don’t belong to you, but the state, church and
men.
--Your vaginas are passages for others – man and
child.
--You do not own your reproductive organs.
----------------------------------There will be in the next generation or so a
pharmacological method of making people love their
servitude and producing dictatorship without tears, so
to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration
camp for entire societies so that people will in fact
have their liberties taken away from them but will
rather enjoy it.
- Aldous Huxley
----------------------------------Faith is the evidence of things hoped for and the
substance of things unseen, Hebrews 11:1
----------------------------------Patriarchy is a political-social system that insists that
males are inherently dominating, superior to
everything and everyone deemed weak, especially
females, and endowed with the right to dominate and
rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance
through various forms of psychological terrorism and
violence.
--Actually the correct way of understanding partriarchy
is to use the full term “imperialist white-supremacist
capitalist patriarchy” since it is part of a package of
ideas that support each other.
----------------------------------Your locus of control can be internal (what you do
determines your future),
Or external (the future is something that is going to
happen to you).
----------------------------------The damage you sustain from leprosy is both from the
disease and from the way you react to it.
--It causes numbing, so you can easily burn or cut
yourself and not know about it.
--“What you can’t feel, you don’t take care of”.
--Hence, the importance of experiencing not avoiding
your mental pain.
----------------------------------The still, sad music of humanity
- Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey poem
----------------------------------A study was conducted at the Univ of Maryland.
--A thousand people participated.
--They were asked to go without their computer
phones for 24 hours and then answer some
questions.
--65% of those quit before the 24 hours was up.
--They couldn’t take it.
----------------------------------The most valuable piece of advice I can give you is
never take anyone’s advice.
--(paradox)
----------------------------------Nothing in life is to be feared, only to be understood.
- Amelia Earhart
----------------------------------Show me a democracy that has a impoverished public
life and I'll show you one that is dominated by
oligarchs and plutocrats who are driven by profit
maximization.
- John Dewey
----------------------------------Walmart is threatening to abandon plans to build
three giant stores in Washington, D.C.
--because the city council insists they pay a living
wage of $12.50 an hour.
--The six heirs of founder Sam Walton are already
worth $116 billion, making them one of the wealthiest
families on the planet.
--How much is enough when no matter what you have
is never enough?
----------------------------------McDonald's admits that it is not paying enough.
--Suggests that its workers get a second job to make
ends meet.
--CEO Don Thompson was just awarded a pay
package of $14 million.
http://www.latimes.com/features/food/dailydish/la-ddmcdonalds-budget-guide-20130716,0,6051133.story
----------------------------------Go to work, send your kids to school, follow fashion,
watch TV, save for old age, obey the law, act normal,
then repeat after me: I am free
----------------------------------All of the following came about by people who looked
at the present and saw a better future:
Outlawing slavery
Women being given the right to vote
Abolishing child labor
The 40 hour work week
Social Security
Unemployment Insurance
Ending the Vietnam War
The Clean Air Act
Advances from the Women's Rights Movement such
as equal pay and abortion rights
Advances from the Civil Rights Movement
and now the Gay Rights Movement.
-Then there are the worker owned businesses popping
up like
Republic Windows in Chicago,
The central bank of North Dakota which is owned by
the people of North Dakota and puts all the profits into
the North Dakota treasury to keep taxes down
the Mondragon Corporation in Spain which is an
enormous worker owned company that is a big as
General Motors
the countless food co-ops throughout the US
the countless credit unions that are worker owned
----------------------------------We are on the third planet of a minor star in a mild
temperate corner of an average galaxy in the
backwash of the known universe.
----------------------------------They laugh at us because we are different.
--We smile back at them because they are all the
same.
- The Amish
----------------------------------After Kurt Gödel's incompleteness theorem
demonstrated that in any system of reasoning, there
will be some things that cannot be explained, Alan
Turing took it to the next level and demonstrated that
you cannot determine which things cannot be
explained.
----------------------------------Sometimes accidents happen in life from which we
have need of a little madness to extricate ourselves
successfully.
----------------------------------The National Bureau of Economic Research found
that one half of all American adults said that they
would have trouble coming up with $2000 for a
medical emergency.
----------------------------------Truths and roses have thorns about them.
-Thoreau
----------------------------------Why, in our country, are those who are driven by
personal greed and narrow self-interest empowered
over those who extol social values like kindness,
generosity, compassion, sharing, empathy, and
community building?
----------------------------------Many cities display what capitalism left behind after it
became profitable for capitalists to relocate and for
new capital investments to happen more elsewhere.
----------------------------------If my vagina was a gun, you would stand for its rights.
-You would ride on a bus and fight all the fights.
If my vagina was a gun you'd say what it holds is
private.
-If my vagina was a gun its rights would all be
protected.
-No matter the body count or the children affected.
If my vagina was a gun, I wouldn't have to beg you.
-I could hunt this great land and do all the things that
men do.
But my vagina's not a gun.
--It's a mightier thing.
-With a voice that rings true, making lawmaker's ears
ring.
Vaginas aren't delicate, they are muscular, magic.
-So stop messing with mine, with legislation that's
tragic.
My vagina is here to demand from the source;
listen to the voices of thousands or feel their full force.
----------------------------------Afraid All The Time
Without even being aware of “It”
Most of the time
God
I am afraid all the time
In streets, hallways, even at home
Day or night
On some heightened level
In parking garages
We’ve all heard the stories
Check over your shoulders
Which only relax
When you recognize
Another female form
Or a leashed dog
present
----------------------------------From 2003 – 2013:
50,000 factories closed in the US.
-6 million workers lost their jobs.
----------------------------------There was a time when the reader of an unexciting
newspaper would remark, “How dull is the world
today” Nowadays he says, “What a dull newspaper”
Demanding more than the world can give us, we
require that something be fabricated to make up for
the world’s deficiency.
----------------------------------We suffer primarily not from our vices or our
weaknesses, but from our illusions.
--We are haunted, not by reality, but by those images
we have put in place of reality.
--To discover our illusions will not solve the problems
of our world.
--But if we do not discover them, we will never
discover our real problems
----------------------------------we are either going to embrace new technologies,
along with their limitations and threats, or slink into an
era of magical thinking where an entire segment of
society, often struggling with the trauma of change,
turns away from reality in favor of a more comfortable
lie.
----------------------------------An angry gaze like a flamethrower.
As serious as a gravedigger.
----------------------------------Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
----------------------------------The color drained from the world that day.
-----------------------------------
We are introducing a playstation mentality to war.
----------------------------------Sex is how we manage to swim in the divine river of
life energy.
----------------------------------There is no crisis that capitalists can't overcome as
long as the working class is willing to pay for it.
--- V.I.Lenin
----------------------------------If a man could have half his wishes, he would double
his troubles.
--- Benjamin Franklin
----------------------------------Drones don't kill people.
--Psychologically detached people 3000 miles away
do.
----------------------------------Every hour wounds.
--The last one kills.
----------------------------------He likes to bring up subjects that cause tension.
I don't know why he does that.
--Maybe he does not have a peaceful state of mind
and he blames it on the world.
--He wants others to live in that world with him.
----------------------------------As popular as a snake in a sleeping bag.
----------------------------------If you accept the world to be exactly as it is, you have
a lot more choices.
----------------------------------Americans represent 5 percent of the world's
population, with one-quarter of the entire world's
prison population.
--Most of that is drug related.
--Is the leading consumer society meeting people's
real needs if so many need to drug themselves?
----------------------------------Trying to transcend corporate America's indoctrination
of what is valuable which is what they can sell you.
----------------------------------If you are a member of congress and you sit on the
defense committee, you are free to buy and sell
defense stock as much as you want.
--If you sit on the banking committee, you are free to
do the same.
----------------------------------Sin, guilt, penance, hierarchy, dominance and
unworthiness
----------------------------------The transformation of pain into power takes place
through an emotional alchemy.
----------------------------------Unfalsifyable = cannot be proven.Why would one
accept something as true that cannot be proven?
----------------------------------In his campaign speeches Obama talks about
standing up to the "fat cats on Wall Street".
--However, here is what he actually did:
1) He appointed Larry Summers to manage the
National Economic Council (Larry Summers is on the
board of Goldman Sachs.
--He is the guy who pushed through the Commodity
Futures Legalization Act when he was with the Clinton
administration.
-- That legislation enabled the stock market crash of
2008.)
2) Obama appointed Tim Geithner as Sec of
Treasury.
--(He is the guy who successfully lobbied for the AIG
bailout and helped write the legislation.)
3) Obama appointed Jeffrey Immelt to run the jobs
council.
--(He is the CEO of General Electric who had recently
closed down factories in the United Stated and spent
$2 Billion building new ones in China.)
----------------------------------Euthyphro's dilemma: Is a thing good simply because
the gods say it is? Or is a thing good in itself and has
nothing to do with what the gods say?"
----------------------------------Look at it this way, we are cups, constantly and
quietly being filled with ideas from the culture around
us.
--The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and
refill ourselves with our own ideas.
----------------------------------Pornography gives the viewer a false sense, a
substitution of intimacy.
----------------------------------Rules for robots:1.
--A robot may not injure a human being or, through
inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.2.
--A robot must obey orders given it by human beings
except where such orders would conflict with the First
Law.3.
--A robot must protect its own existence as long as
such protection does not conflict with the First or
Second Law.
----------------------------------Sticks and stones may break our bones, but not
responding can break our hearts.
----------------------------------Consciousness gives us the illusion that it exists
outside of time, space and matter.
----------------------------------I am still searching for a concept of God that makes
sense to me.
--So far, I have discovered God is a being, a principle,
chance, a representation, everything and my favorite:
unnameable - unthinkable.
--I find flaws in all those concepts, but I am still
searching, although the unnameable / unthinkable
concept from the Middle Ages fascinates me.
--It is called the "Via Negativa".
----------------------------------Amati, Guarneri, Stradiveri all had their violin shops
on the same street.
--Amati's shop had a sign "Best violins in Italy".
--Guarneri's shop had a sign "Best violins in Europe".
--Stradiveri's shop had a sign "Best violins on this
street".
----------------------------------There is an intriguing story of Reverend Carlton
Pearson, who had a congregation of thousands and
was expected to be the successor to Oral Roberts.
--But then one day he started thinking about how
could a loving God create Hell.
--He started researching the Bible to find out if there
was in fact, a Hell.
--After 6 months of research, he concluded there is no
Hell.
--Once he started preaching this new theology his
congregation got smaller and smaller, apparently
most people like the idea that their neighbor is going
to hell.
--Now Rev.
--Pearson preaches out of a store front in a run down
strip mall to about 20 people each Sunday.
--http://tinyurl.com/3c6wzj
----------------------------------Bede Rundle in his book "Why there is Something
rather than Nothing" states the cupboard analogy:
There is nothing in the cupboard.
--We can understand that, but we still have the
cupboard.
--So we take away the cupboard.
--We still have the house.
--So we take away the house.
--We still have the street.
--So we take away the street, the city, the country, the
world, the solar system, the universe, space and time.
--We then have nothing, but it is inconceivable.
----------------------------------Physicist Michio Kaku talking about Einstein's concept
of God: He said that for Einstein, God is not a person
but a ubiquitous principle of harmony, order and
consistency.
--Some people meditate to resonate with this
principle.OK.
--I understand.
--One thing I would never want to do is take you off
your path toward inner peace.
----------------------------------I often risk wearing people out with my ceaseless
inquiry into difficult subjects.
--Thank you for putting up with me.
----------------------------------It the six week battle for Iwo Jima 22,000 Japanese
were killed.
--7,000 Americans were killed.
--18,000 Americans were wounded.
----------------------------------In Fascist Spain Senoras and Senoritas were revered
in their subservience.
----------------------------------Suppose my doctor said to me "You have cancer,
even though you show no symptoms, there is nothing
on your X-rays and your blood tests are fine.
--There is no evidence of you having cancer.
--I am just saying it because it is possible." I would fire
him and start seeing a different doctor.
--I don't want to live my life on theories that have no
evidence.
----------------------------------People have said "Don't cry" to other people for years
and years, and all it has ever meant is "I'm too
uncomfortable when you show your feelings."
----------------------------------My favorite Jack Kerouac story is when one day a
group of young people tracked him down to his
mothers house in Lowell.
--He answered the door.
--They were wearing matching black leather jackets.
--They told him they were just like him and they all
turned around at once to show him that on their backs
in silver studs were the words "Dharma Bums".
--He slammed the door on them.
----------------------------------Crony Capitalism is what is in the US today (as
opposed to free market Capitalism) - David Stockman
----------------------------------At one point in history map makers were making
bigger and bigger maps.
The populace started to joke that soon a map would
be issued that was the size of the entire earth.
Well, the media has done essentially the same thing,
laying out a gigantic map of reality on our minds.
We no longer know if we are stepping on our mind's
experience or on the map.
----------------------------------We have so steeped ourselves in the theatrical arts
by watching them and by assimilating them that we
have turned our own lives into a movie which we can
watch and we can perform in simultaneously.
Even one’s clothing becomes a costume that enables
you to be a role player in a fantasy.
----------------------------------The closing years of life are like the end of a costume
ball, when the masks are dropped.- Schopenhauer
----------------------------------In 1995 there were five different versions of string
theory.
Then, Ed Witten combined them all with his 11
dimension string theory.
He also said that a string could become a membrane.
----------------------------------In Atlas Shrugged, extraordinary people demonstrate
their extraordinariness by making a lot of money and
sharing it with no one.
The conclusion reached by the end of the novel is that
anyone who isn't a superman should either worship
the supermen or stay out of their way, and if
unfortunately average people die in the process, oh
well.
----------------------------------Winter takes you to a place within yourself.
-----------------------------------
Eros is the mother of sex, love, feeling and the desire
to make things.
The words, generation, genius, genial, genital, and
generous are all contained within its purpose.
Thanatos embraces darkness, obscurity, evil and
entropy.
- Milton Glasier
----------------------------------Society of the Spectacle starts by explaining that the
world is an immense accumulation of images that sell
capitalism.
The spectacle is the ongoing propaganda of images.
Debord proposed that in modern societies we relate
to each other via media, getting to know each other's
feelings about media instead of authentically
connecting.
Debord proposed that people now build relationships
through the spectacle, meaning you may talk to
someone about a movie, but never talk with them as a
person.
----------------------------------If there is a thing called mental illness, it precedes the
symptoms and symptoms are the first sign of health.
----------------------------------Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy,
GodAll lies.What are you hiding? I dream in color.But
the more I live in the world, the more it changes into
black and white.
--Astronomy defined our home as a small planet
tucked away in one corner of an average galaxy
among millions Biology showed how humans evolved
from tiny animals.
Geology gave us the immensity of time and taught us
how little of it our own species has occupied.
----------------------------------Obama is such a "socialist" that upon his election, he
appointed Jack Lew (CEO of Citibank) as his Chief of
Staff (chief advisor).
On 1/9/12 Jack wanted to go back to his old job so
Obama replaced him with Bill Daley (CEO of JP
Morgan Chase Bank).
Most people are unaware that the top four national
banks have earned more in the first two years of the
Obama Administration than in all 8 years of the Bush
Administration.
----------------------------------Christmas: A perfectly good celebration of natural
phenomena and the honoring of the cycles of nature
which has been usurped by a religious power elite
and now by a corporate power elite.
They see it as an opportunity to control the population
by redirecting their desires toward some commodity
purchase.
It is especially focused on children who must be
taught at an early age that commodities = happiness.
----------------------------------Many people participate in a collective amnesia in
order keep the American dream of endless growth
and consumerism alive.
----------------------------------I will spend the day waiting for the ostracized, the
alienated and the damned to walk in the door, the
ones for whom the night is darkest, the wind is
coldest, and the indifference of the world most
intolerable.
Those are the people I feel the greatest connection to
and I am proud to be in their company.
-----------------------------------
Marxist interpretation of the Wizard of Oz:Oz is a
totalitarian state that maintains its power through
intimidation.
The Scarecrow represents that segment of the
proletariat who want to understand the nature of
society but have been told all their lives that they are
too simple minded.
The Lion represents that segment of the proletariat
who fears the awesome power of the state.
The Tin Man represents that segment of the
proletariat who sees the cold, heartless indifference of
industrial technology and wants to humanize it.
Dorothy represents those who are pragmatic and
want to forge ahead on the road to revolution (the
yellow brick road) as she gets others to join her and
the populace encourages her.
The Wizard represents the ruling elite who when
exposed, reveal that they are completely inept in
meeting the needs of the people.
----------------------------------An Enlightened Master is ideal only if your goal is to
becomea Benighted Slave.
- Robert Anton Wilson, 1932 - 2007
----------------------------------Every school of Buddhism aims at the same
characterological goals: self-insight, serene
detachment from impermanent objects of desire,
apprehension of the underlying unity of all things,
compassion toward suffering, reaching out to the
needy, and sangha, or a loving community of the
faithful.
----------------------------------There exists no politician in India brave enough to
attempt to explain to the masses in the starving areas
that cows can be eaten.- Indira Ghandi
----------------------------------Most photographers photograph the face.
Few photograph what is behind it.
----------------------------------The opposite of existentialism is the tranquilizing of
the trivial.
----------------------------------I have a different reading of Existentialism (it is not
exactly a clearly written philosophy).
One's life is divided into what you do and what
happens to you.
There is no meaning in what happens to you,
however, when you deal with what happens to you,
you give your life meaning.
Furthermore, others cannot easily see the meaning
that you put in your life.
To them it looks absurd.
They would actually have to live your life to
understand the meaning.
So, a better way of putting it would be "For the outside
observer, life has no meaning.
It does to the one living it." (This is from Camus
example of the man talking in a phone booth in his
book The Stranger.)
----------------------------------We are continually faced with a series of great
opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble
problems.- John Gardener
----------------------------------Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.- John
Gardener
----------------------------------Dean was simply a guy tremendously excited with life
who wanted so much to live.
I learned from him as much as he probably learned
from me.
As far as my work was concerned he said, "Go
ahead, write about me, you are a great writer." There
was a kind of holy lightning I saw flashing from his
excitement and his visions, which he described so
torrentially that people in buses looked around to see
the "overexcited nut." The whole mad swirl of
everything that was to come began when I met him; it
would mix up all my friends and all I had left of my
family in a big dust cloud over the American Night.
– Jack Kerouac
----------------------------------I have lived with death for so longand it still takes it
toll on me.
Tonight I came in and my goldfish was not in his bowl,
he had leaped
for reasons of his own
and he was now on the rug
and he was still and he was stiff
but I put him back in the water
but the body was still stiff
and I sat down on the couch
and tried to read,
tried not to think
that the woman who had given me that fish
was now dead months,
the world going on past living things
now no longer living,
and an hour later
when I got up
he floated flat and finished;
his eyes looking up at me did not look at me
but into places I could not see,
I dumped him into the toilet
and flushed him away.
I put the bowl in the corner
and thought, I really cannot stand
much more of this.
dead fish, dead ladies
it does seem a miracle to see anybody alive
and now somebody on the radio
is playing a classical guitar and I think, yes,
even he will die
and I lay there, very still,
very quiet,
and very tired.- Charles Bukowski
----------------------------------Luck is a matter of perspective.
A father and his son owned a farm.
They did not have many animals, but they did own a
horse.
One day the horse ran away.That appeared to be bad
luck, however:Several weeks later the horse returned,
bringing with him four wild mares.That appeared to be
good luck, however:The son began to learn to ride the
wild horses, but one day he was thrown and broke his
leg.That appeared to be bad luck, however:The next
week the army came to the village to take all the
young men to war.
The farmer’s son was still disabled with his broken
leg, so he was spared.
----------------------------------The dread of life is that swarm of trivialities
that can kill quicker than cancer
and which are always there
license plates or taxes
or expired driver's license,
or roaches or flies
or ascreen with a rip in it,
or out of gas
or too much gas,
light switch broken,
mattress like a porcupine;
$205 for a tune-up, carburetor and fuel pump at sears
roebuck;
the broken toilet handle
that you have to jiggle,
and the light that has burned out
-the hall light, the front light, the back light,
the inner light
(it's darker than hell
and twice as expensive).
Or trying to make ends meet
as a waitress at Denny's on the night shift,
or as an emptier of bedpans,
or working at a carwash.
suddenly flashing red lights in your rear view mirror
and blood in your underwear;
toothache,
and plenty of rolling papers but no pot,
except maybe one to piss in
and the other one around your gut.
with each broken shoelace
out of one hundred broken shoelaces,
one man, one woman
enters a madhouse.
so be careful
when you
bend over.
-----------------------------------
In our fast paced, information-overload world of
multiple stimuli bombarding us every second, peoples
heads are spinning.
--They must form quick judgments to make sense of
the world and get on with what they have to do.
--Television combines news about the war, Paris
Hilton's career, global warming and Geico
commercials into events of equal importance.
--The result is an enormous population that believes
nothing matters.
----------------------------------damp with the perspiration of the struggle for
existence,
----------------------------------then you are backing the car out into life itself, like
millions of others you enter the arena once more.
----------------------------------Being near death is energizing.
--I have all the advantages.
--I can see and feel things that are hidden from the
young.
- bukowski
----------------------------------When the Japanese mend broken objects they
celebrate the damage by filling the cracks with gold,
because they believe that when something's suffered
damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful.
----------------------------------You can easily judge the character of others by how
they treat those who can do nothing for them or to
them.
----------------------------------According to the Congressional Budget Office
between 1980 and 2007, the average household
income after taxes for the bottom 80% has remained
constant, for the top 20% it has doubled, for the top
1% it has quadrupled.
Why? Well there has been a 40% tax cut since the
1960’s for incomes over $1 million or more and a 50%
tax cut in corporate taxes in the past 30 years
----------------------------------20 years ago, not a single state had an obesity rate
about 15%Today 38 states are above 25%.
----------------------------------You don’t have to smell the peanuts on his breath to
realize there is an elephant in the room.
----------------------------------You don’t have to believe that it will work, you just
have to believe that there is a chance.
The joy is in the struggle.
----------------------------------The US is currently an immense accumulation of
images that sell the culture of capitalism.
The spectacle is the ongoing propaganda of images.
The ruling class have a totalitarian control of all
media, through television, movies and print media.
Mass media and advertising sell the ideology of
advanced capitalism in the same way that religious
architecture, statues and iconography pervaded
societies of the past to sell feudalism.
----------------------------------People struggled for women’s rights and the abolition
of slavery for hundreds of years and then when
enough people’s minds were influenced, there was a
tipping point in which change was very rapid.
----------------------------------In 1987 the average Wall Street bonus was $16,000 =
$30,000 in today’s money.
In 2007 the average Wall Street bonus was $180,000.
That is an increase of 600%.
Over that same period the average working class
income went up 3%
----------------------------------If you are in your car and you see someone on the
phone in a phone booth, shouting in a fit of anger into
the phone, you might say "What is the point of getting
so worked up about anything?" And the reason you
might say that is because you are separated from the
life of that individual.
They could also say the same thing about you.
Life, from a distance, is absurd.
It has no meaning.
But life as it is lived and experienced has a great deal
of meaning.
- Abert Camus
----------------------------------Now you see this one-eyed midget
Shouting the word "NOW"
And you say, "For what reason?"
And he says, "How?"
And you say, "What does this mean?"
And he screams back, "You're a cow
Give me some milk
Or else go home"
Bob Dylan “Ballad of a Thin Man”
----------------------------------US oil companies earn about $3 billion in profits every
week, yet get $4 billion in taxpayer subsidies every
year.
In the first quarter of 2011, Big Oil's profits were up 38
percent from the first quarter of 2010.
-----------------------------------
Ancient African Wisdom: Never insult an alligator until
after you have crossed the river.
----------------------------------Illumination is the essence of photography, but
shadow is what takes it to the next level.
----------------------------------Words make you think a thought.
Music makes you feel a feeling.
A song makes you feel a thought.
----------------------------------This mirror doesn't tell the whole truth.
It doesn't show what's deep inside,
or read between the lines,
and it's really no reflection of your youth.
----------------------------------Japanese terms: Honne = the real truth
Tatamae = the socially acceptable facade
----------------------------------A great fire burns within me, but few stop to warm
themselves at it
-Van Gough
----------------------------------What is the upper level narrative that makes best
sense of the world?
----------------------------------Experience is the sum of our memories.
Wisdom is the sum of our experiences.
----------------------------------Sticks and stones are hard on bones
and words can be quite painful
but silence breaks the heart.
----------------------------------The ice cubes are melting in your glass and all the
fish have swam away.
----------------------------------I look upon facebook as an extension of the thought
police in the book 1984.
It encourages people to spy on themselves and
submit all their thoughts and activities to public
scrutiny where they are judged by others as to how
well they are conforming.
Last year when people were writing on my wall
"Happy Birthday" I replied "send me this message in
an email at para@hotftv.net".
----------------------------------I thought I saw the idle hours flee,
And as they passed, turned back and laughed at me.
----------------------------------Religion is an enormous structure of interpretation of
the universe.
----------------------------------Q: Do you lie a lot?
A: What do you consider “a lot”?
Q: Enough for people to call you a liar.
A: People call me lots of things.
Q: Is one of the “liar”?
A: I could say “no”, but how would you know I am not
lying?
----------------------------------The alienation of our society is replaced by
friendliness of an imaginary world, pictures conjured
up by publicity.
----------------------------------Everyone taps into the sexual energy that is an
essential part of the life force of this planet.
----------------------------------Everybody funny.
Now you funny too.
----------------------------------Divine Discontent: What happens when an artist is
unhappy with his work because he could have done
better.
----------------------------------The whale is but the mask.
I seek what is behind it.
- Captain Ahab
----------------------------------The condition of Truth is to allow suffering to speak.
Cornell West
----------------------------------A dreamer is one who can only find his way by
moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the
dawn before the rest of the world.
- Oscar Wilde
----------------------------------The top 400 US wealthiest people own more than the
bottom 150 million.
US Right wing groups throughout history (Ku Klux
Klan, American Nazi Party, The Liberty League,
America First, The John Birch Society, The
McCarthyites, The Tea Party) are all noted for their
hatred, bigotry, ignorance of history, imperialism,
militarism or devotion to private enterprise.
--------------------------------------------------------------------Capitalism has a material culture of consumption that
drives it growth (live your life spending)
--------------------------------------------------------------------Entertainment that is just narcissistic fodder
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Donors Trust is a 501-C4 corp.
--It allows hidden contributions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------People that are marginalized and denied meaningful
work lose their motivation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------Identification
Ostracism
Confiscation
Imprisonment
Annihilation
--------------------------------------------------------------------The Universe is:
4% atoms
23% invisible dark matter
73% dark energy from the big bang
--------------------------------------------------------------------END
Galileo answered his critics that the Earth was not the
center of the universe by saying that God was the
author of two great books, the Bible and the book of
nature.
--Both books express truths differently.
--“The Bible teaches us how to go to heaven.
--The book of nature teaches us how the heavens
go.”
----------------------------------The Higgs boson is a hypothetical massive
elementary particle predicted to exist by the Standard
Model of particle physics.
--The existence of the particle is postulated as a
means of resolving inconsistencies in current
theoretical physics, and attempts are being made to
confirm the existence of the particle by
experimentation
----------------------------------Oz is a totalitarian state that maintains its power
through intimidation.
--The Scarecrow represents that segment of the
proletariat who want to understand the nature of
society but have been told all their lives that they are
too simple minded.
--The Lion represents that segment of the proletariat
who fears the awesome power of the state.
--The Tin Man represents that segment of the
proletariat who sees the cold, heartless indifference of
industrial technology and wants to humanize it.
--Dorothy represents those who are pragmatic and
want to forge ahead on the road to revolution (the
yellow brick road) as she gets others to join her and
the populace encourages her.
--Her journey is hindered by right wing paramilitary
groups (The Wicked Witch of the West and the Flying
Monkeys).
--The Wizard represents the ruling elite who when
exposed, reveal that they are completely inept in
meeting the needs of the people."The Munsters"- an
immigrant family which strives for assimilation into the
American mainstream, but just can't overcome the
prejudices of their community.
----------------------------------Big Drug Companies:AstraZenecaJohnson &
JohnsonBristol-Myers SquibbEli LillyPfizer
----------------------------------The entire movement of U.S.
--corporations in recent years has been to shift their
industrial production of everything overseas, in search
of the cheapest, most repressed, most terrorized
labor they can find.So let’s take the iPhone, which is
made with a mineral named Coltan.
--It is mined in the Congo.
--It is manufactured in Shanghai.
--It provides: fun for the Americans who can afford it
through either credit or disposable income
unemployment for the U.S.
--workers virtual slavery for the Congolese workers
who are extracting the minerals under the lash.
--6.9 million people have died since 1998 in wars in
the Congo as the people are trying to take their
country back.
--Perhaps you have heard of the Rwandan genocide?
That is the Congo.
-----------------------------------Though no one can go back and make a brand new
start, anyonecan start from now and make a brand
new ending.
----------------------------------he who never made a mistake never made a
discovery.
----------------------------------All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
--But all play andno work makes him something
worse.
----------------------------------You can use your Visa or MasterCard, according to
the London /Guardian/, to donate to the KKK, but you
can't use them to donate to Wikileaks.
----------------------------------The Obama administration has formed a Deficit
Commission whose members are coming up with
ideas on to pay for the multi-trillion dollar wars that
are enriching the military/security complex and the
multi-trillion dollar bailouts of the financial system.
--Here are some of their suggestions:
Reducing annual cost-of-living increases for Social
Security
Raising the retirement age to 69
Ending the mortgage interest deduction
Ending the tax deduction for employer-provided
health insurance
Imposing a 6.5 per cent federal sales tax(All of the
above while cutting the top tax rate for the rich.)And at
a time when the U.S.
--Department of Agriculture is documenting increasing
numbers of American families that report experiencing
some days of hunger in their household, at a time
when U.S.
--schools are turning out fewer students who are good
at reading, math and logical thinking as compared to
students from other countries, at this precise time,
they are suggesting: Cutting food stamps. Cutting aid
to public schools. Cutting student loans which provide
the opportunity to get higher education.
----------------------------------We are finally suffering from the consequences of the
mind-bath of marketing.
--The psychic environment, the thousands of gushing
products that we walk through, has altered are basic
perceptions.
--Our “pattern consciousness” is shattered.
--We have come to believe the basic con-job of
Consumerism, which is: “This product on the shelf
has no past, no labor or natural resources history.
--The reality of this shiny package begins with buying
it.”Thus the emotional report of the shopping grosses
last Friday – that it increased by 5% and that this is a
stand alone American triumph.
--The fetish for the retail grosses… what a weird
horse race The Wall Street expectations are met,
disappointed or surpassed and we are taught to obey
the applause signs.
--But if our pattern consciousness hadn’t broken
down, we wouldn’t act like we are outside of time.
--We would sense a history in these products.We
would see through the hypnotizing horse race to the
real impact of Consumerism in the world.
--We would connect this kind of shopping to
sweatshops, to the dying oceans, to wars for oil, to
the silencing waves of extinction.We would look down
at our hand, hovering there over the counter with
money in the fingers.
--How much power is in this gesture? Consumerism
keeps this economy going, which is destroying life.
--This Christmas is selling everything.And how deeply
felt would be our recognition - that living sustainably
isn't just a political position.
--Will our children live?
----------------------------------Situationism: Mass media and advertising have a
central role in an advanced capitalist society, which is
to show a fake reality in order to mask the real
capitalist degradation of human life.
----------------------------------The older I get the better I used to beYou can make a
lot of money in this game.
--Just ask myex-wives.
--Both of them are so rich that neither of
theirhusbands work.- Lee Trevino
----------------------------------There is nothing affluent Westerners of the
information-economy class like better than being told
that our lives lack soulfulness, sensuality and a sense
of purpose - except, perhaps, for heaping derision on
those who bring us this news.
-----------------------------------Facebook is a kind of fascist Borg in which we lose
our individuality.
--It is an invasive technology which is preparing us for
a world where everyone will know what we are
thinking.
----------------------------------A variety of seemingly unrelated people, each
struggling with the day-to-day obstacles and
disappointments of life, are drawn together by a single
critical incident.
--Short Cuts, Magnolia and 21 Grams would be just a
few noteworthy examples of this kind of storytelling
which strives to underscore our interconnectedness
and our fragility in a world that has a momentum too
large for any one human to completely control.
----------------------------------In 2007, the top 1 percent of all income earners in the
United States made 23.5 percent of all income - more
than the bottom 50 percent.
-The percentage of income going to the top 1 percent
nearly tripled since the mid-1970s.
Eighty percent of all new income earned from 1980 to
2005 has gone to the top 1 percent.
-The top 1 percent now owns more wealth than the
bottom 90 percent.
----------------------------------In theory, there is no difference between theory
andpractice.
--But, in practice, there is.
----------------------------------We both agree that your theory is crazy.
--The question which divides us is whether it is crazy
enough to have a chance of being correct.
--My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.
----------------------------------Eventually everything collapses, times change,And
new life blossoms in the ruins.
----------------------------------What counts is not what sounds plausible, not what
we would like to believe, not what one or two
witnesses claim, but only what is supported by hard
evidence rigorously and skeptically examined.- Carl
Sagan
----------------------------------three major Obama programs were co-opted by, at
great cost, by powerful institutions – health care
yielded to the insurance lobby, Iraq/Afghanistan was
rewritten by the military-industrial complex, and the
financial regulations were drawn up to suit the big
banks.
-----------------------------------Sometimes it is admirable to charge hell with a bucket
of water, but even the gods will refrain from trying to
influence a stupid person.
-----------------------------------When you take the reigns yourself the cart goes
where you want it to.
-----------------------------------Why are corporate profits and bank bonuses soaring
while long-term unemployment is at near Depression
levels?What is the real cause of Global
Warming?Why do the rich pay a smaller percentage
of their income in taxes than the working class?Why
is the US spending $720 million a day on the Iraq and
Afghanistan wars? Why did the US Supreme Court
give corporations the right to spend unlimited
amounts of money for and against political
candidates?Why are there 47 million Americans
without health care?Why have wages when adjusted
for inflation not increased since 1972 while the
income of the top 1% wealthy has quadrupled?
----------------------------------Mondegreen = misheard lyric in a song“And laid him
on the green = And Lady Mondegreen”
----------------------------------I dislike all sports except wrestling.
--It is the most honest of all sports.
--It is a spectacle meant to entertain and distract.
--The wrestlers know it and the spectators know it.
--The outcome is controlled by an unseen people
whose goal is self enrichment.
--It is identical to politics.
--This was said by Lee Atwater, president of the
Republican National Committee under Bush the first.
--He died at age 40 from a brain tumor.
--You may have heard of his protégé: Karl Rove.
-----------------------------------We made it as a group to the world series and I am
not talking just about the players.
--The security people, the ticket takers and the hot
dog vendors all played a part in our success.- Ron
Washington
----------------------------------Sade: Every death even the cruelest deathdrowns in
the total indifference of Nature.Nature herself would
watch unmovedif the entire human race destroyed
itself.Nature is a passionless spectator, an
unbreakable iceberg-face,that can bear
everything.Marat: Against Nature's silence I use
action.In the vast indifference I invent a meaning.I
don't watch unmoved I interveneand say that this and
this are wrongand I work to alter them and improve
them.
----------------------------------Yesterday This Day's Madness did prepare;
To-morrow's Silence, Triumph, or Despair
- The RubaiyatBy Omar Khayyam
----------------------------------Several years back there were a number of articles
that explained clearly just how critically important it is
for America that the U.S.
--dollar be the world's "reserve currency." Having the
U.S.
--dollar be the "reserve currency"-the medium of
exchange for buying oil that the U.S.
--has imposed on the rest of the world for many
years-is important, because-fair or not-the U.S.
--has been the only country that can buy oil with
newly minted dollars.
-- The people of the rest of the world has had to
actually save up U.S.
--dollars if they wanted oil.
----------------------------------To say you are neutral and not intervening when you
see a cat tormenting a mouse, does not sound neutral
to the mouse.
--You have actually sided with the cat.
----------------------------------I used to want to accomplish a great and noble task,
but I realized that it is preferable to accomplish small
tasks as if they were great and noble.- Helen Keller
----------------------------------Focus on what you are grateful forNot what you are
disappointed in.
-----------------------------------Thank specificallyAcknowledge the effortShare what it
means to you.
----------------------------------Say what you did wrong without excusesAcknowledge
what it did to others
Say you’re sorry and what you’ll do to correct it.
-----------------------------------Don’t try to change other people.Accept them as they
are and hope they change As opposed to not
accepting them at all until they change.
----------------------------------Winter solitude.In a world of one color,The sound of
wind.-Basho
----------------------------------“It is the end of the world” said the caterpillar.“It is just
the beginning” said the butterfly
----------------------------------It was a cesspool of moral decay and hedonistic
excesses which contained every form of debauchery
one could conceive of.
-----------------------------------Obama has changed the name of the 50,000 soldiers
we're leaving behind in Iraq from "combat troops" to
"advise and assist brigades," he has also changed the
name of the Iraq War from "Operation Iraqi Freedom"
to "Operation New Dawn,"
----------------------------------Radio is being alone in a room with a microphone,
leaning forward into the dark and letting the words
pour out of you.
----------------------------------We come to selfhood only through the observations of
others.- Hegel
----------------------------------Collapsing of the wave form = becoming either a
particle or a wave.
--Does it need an observer to collapse or is matter
intelligent? Can a black hole be an observer?
----------------------------------Catch on fire with enthusiasm and people will come
for miles to feel your warmth.
----------------------------------Long stormy winterchilling the lap of early
Aprilfollowed by wet contentious May,but alas the
season of summer has come.
----------------------------------To avoid criticismdo nothingsay nothingbe nothingElbert Hubbard
----------------------------------Are you putting on a face to meet the faces that you
will meet?
----------------------------------When death comes for you
with its last cold kiss
will you be ready?
Will you say
“I have consumed
my hours
and my years
and I am ready
for the dark”.
-----------------------------------The Vampire is a metaphor for sex with a strangerThe
Wolfman is a metaphor for the unbridled id.The
Frankenstein Monster is a metaphor for asexual
generation.
----------------------------------Time is the nature’s way to keep everything from
happening all at once.
--Space is nature’s way to keep everything from
happening in the same place.
-----------------------------------Since 1/1/09 BP has employed 49 lobbyists at a cost
of $19.5 million.
--35 of the 49 lobbyists previously held federal
positions.
-----------------------------------Jugaad: (from India) making something happen with
whatever tools are at your disposal just so that you
will survive.
----------------------------------Relationship police: Are you aware you were doing a
“happily ever after” in a “let’s see how it goes” zone?
----------------------------------I pledge allegiance To the card Of the United States
of Credit.One nation, under debtWith late fees and
high interest ratesFor all.
-----------------------------------I pledge allegiance to the Earth
and all the life that it supports.
One planet, in our care, irreplaceable
with sustenance and respect
for all.
-----------------------------------Of all art forms, film is the one that gives the greatest
illusion of authenticity and truth.
--A motion picture takes a viewer inside where real
people are supposedly doing real things.
--We assume there is a certain verisimilitude but there
is always some degree of manipulation and distortion.
-----------------------------------The ordinary is killing us.Our luck is used up.We
haven't forgotten how to fight,but the long battle has
made us weary.We are engulfed by the ordinary.
--We allowed it.
--We deserve it.
--A freight train passes in the night.
--The heart sits alone.
--We wait.
--Dreamless.- Charles Bukowski
----------------------------------Bitterness is like cancer.
--It eats upon the host.
--But anger is like fire.
--It burns it all clean.- Maya Angelou
----------------------------------A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until
he begins to blame someone else.
----------------------------------Statisticians tell us that people underestimate the
sheer number of coincidences that are bound to
happen in a world governed by chance.- Steven
Pinker
----------------------------------"How I need a drink, alcoholic in nature, after the
heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics" 'How'
has three letters, 'I' has one, "need" has four — so it
forms 3.14, the start of π — and each successive
word's letter count represents the next digit in π.
----------------------------------Renormalizing the wave function is something that
has to be done to a lot of quantum physics
calculations to stop the answer from being
infinity...instead, the answer always comes out as
one.
----------------------------------Speech retrieves old adventures in the form of stories
much more tidy than they ever were when lived.McLuhan documentary
----------------------------------The stories that have shaped our culture.
--The beliefs and assumptions and fables that have
shaped our lives.
--The fairy tales we have told ourselves.
--The madness we have made manifest in the world.
--The madness that threatens the community of life
itself.
1) humans are separate from nature, special, the
pinnacle of creation2) humans are innately flawed,
violent, selfish and greedy3) the world was made for
human beings to manage control and exploit as a
resource.
4) There is only one right way to live and only one
right way to understand and view the world.5)
Unlimited growth, competition and production are all
unquestionably good.6) We can have and do anything
we want because there are no limits.
--What a way to go documentary
----------------------------------Counter advertising = advertising the deglamorizes
the product.In the US cigarettes kill more people than
alcohol, cocaine, heroin, car crashes, homicides,
suicides and AIDS combined.
-----------------------------------Lived experience vs.
--reflection
----------------------------------In a romance, each person basically plays a part that
the other really likes.
-----------------------------------To have a great idea, have a lot of them.- Thomas
Edison
----------------------------------Our greatest weakness lies in giving up.
--The most certain wayto succeed is always to try just
one more time.-Thomas Edison
----------------------------------Sometimes,even in our darkest sleep,the pain which
we cannot forget,falls drop by drop upon our heart.Aeschelus
----------------------------------‘Kooks’ see UFOs because of an innate desire to
promote the mystical within their lives.
--They do so by introducing magic to mundane events
so as to elevate their status amongst peers.
--After investigation, analysts agree that between 90
and 95 per cent of all UFO sightings prove to be
Identified Flying Objects.
--Over 300 different things have been misperceived
as UFOs – including a bin bag, a shaggy dog and a
telegraph pole.
--The Null Hypotheses proposes that all of the
remaining unsolved cases would become IFOs given
enough study and sufficient evidence.
-----------------------------------Creativity it will do almost anything you ask it to
do.even death stands back in its presencecreativity
astonishes the walls, the windows, the cats, and the
wooden Buddha It can create a woman more beautiful
than any you have ever seen or it can punch a bully in
the nosecreativity is love found again in a flood of
fire.It is a dance floor, a wild circus, a refuge for the
nearly insane.creativity sprouts tiny flowers of
courage in the middle of the night.It throws off sparks
of light when the dark is as dark as dark can get.and if
you ever feel the futility of your efforts, or if you feel
age like the blade of death, or if you feel like jumping
out of the window at 2 a.m.
--creativity can save your life.
-----------------------------------The mind can’t tell the difference between what is real
and what is imaginary when thinking of the future.
-----------------------------------Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who
said it - even if I have said it - unless it agrees with
your own reason and your own common sense.Buddha
----------------------------------regardlessthe nights you fight best are when all the
weapons are pointed at you, when all the voices hurl
their insults while the dream is being strangled.and
when reason gets kicked in the gut, the nights you
fight best are when the laughter of fools fills the air,
when the game is fixed, when the crowd screams for
your blood.and when the chariots of gloom encircle
you.the nights you fight best are on a night like this as
you chase a thousand dark rats from your brain, as
you rise up against the impossible, as you walk
through the flowers of defiance and move on
regardless.
----------------------------------The Martyrdom of Perpetua in 202 AD.
--She insisted on being martyred, even though her
father and even the governor tried to talk her out of it.
--She was visited by many Christians in jail and even
got pregnant and had a baby.
--She gave the baby away on the way as she was
going into the area.
--She walked in defiantly and stared down all the wild
animals.
--The governor sent in a gladiator to finish her off.
--The gladiator held his sword at her throat and his
hand began to tremble.
--She had to grab his hand and push the sword into
her throat.
--The crowd was in awe.
-----------------------------------If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring
forth will save you.
--If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you
do not bring forth will destroy you.
--Gospel of Thomas saying 70
----------------------------------We often miss opportunity because it is dressed in
overalls and looks like work.- Thomas Edison
----------------------------------There is a fountain of youth.
--It is in your mind.
--It is the creativity you bring to your life.
--When you keep tapping into this source, you have
truly defeated age.
-----------------------------------Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it,
doesn't go away._Philip K.
--Dick
----------------------------------Some people have books in which the comments
scrawled by their hand in the margin are more
interesting than the text.
--The world is one of these books.
----------------------------------It is about a system in which ruthless people rose to
the top of the economic pyramid and then began
changing the rules to stay on top and keep gaining
more wealth at the expense of those in the lower
depths of the pyramid.
--http://tinyurl.com/yvatp
----------------------------------True religion is the life we lead, not the creed we
profess.
----------------------------------The written word is a good way to go someplace
without moving anything but your heart.
----------------------------------Terminus ad quem = the end to asking the question
“Why?”
----------------------------------Anarchism stands for liberation of the human mind
from the dominion of religion, liberation of the human
body from the dominion of property, liberation from
shackles, and the restraint of government.
--It stands for social order based on the free grouping
of individuals.
--- Emma Goldman
----------------------------------We cannot live only for ourselves.
--A thousand fibers connectus with our fellow men;
and among those fibers, assympathetic threads, our
actions run as causes, and they comeback to us as
effects. - Herman Melville, 1819 - 1891
----------------------------------Creativity is the power to connect the seemingly
unconnected.
----------------------------------A happy life cannot be without a measure of
darkness, and the word 'happy' would lose its
meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.- Carl
Jung
----------------------------------Life is not measured by number of breaths you take,
but by the moments that take your breath away.
----------------------------------Hypnosis is focused attention coupled with physical
relaxation
----------------------------------If your memories have anger in them, that memory
controls us.
--When memory controls us, we become puppets of
the past.
-----------------------------------What happens if the top tax rate on people making
over $357,700 goes up from its current 35% to, for
example, the Eisenhower-era 91%? For over 120
million American workers who don't earn over
$357,700/year, it won't mean a thing.
--But for the tiny handful of millionaires and
billionaires it will bite hard.
--And that's why they spend millions to make average
working people freak out about increases in the top
tax rates.
--High top tax rates (generally well above 60%) on
rich people actually stabilize the economy, prevent
economic bubbles from forming, prevent economic
crashes, and lead to steady and sustained economic
growth (and steady and sustained wage growth for
working people).On the other hand, when top tax
rates drop below 50 percent, the opposite happens.
--The massive Republican tax cuts of the 1920s (from
73% to 25%) led directly to the Roaring '20s stock
market bubble, temporary boom, and then the crash
and Republican Great Depression of 1929.Rates on
the very rich went back up into the 70-90% range
from the 1930s to the 1980s.
--As a result, the economy grew steadily; for the first
time in the history of our nation we went 50 years
without a crash or major bank failure; and working
people's wages increased enough to produce the
strongest middle class this nation has ever seen.Then
came Reaganomics.Reagan cut top tax rates on
millionaires and billionaires from 74% down to 38%
and there was an immediate surge in the markets followed by the worst crash since the Great
Depression and the failure of virtually the entire
nation's savings and loan banking system.Bush I cut
taxes, and the nation fell into a severe recession while
debt soared and wages for working people fell.Things
stabilized somewhat when Clinton slightly raised
taxes on the very rich, but W.
--Bush dropped them again- Thom Hartmann
----------------------------------The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as
well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the
streets, and to steal bread.
----------------------------------No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars,
orsailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new
heaven to thehuman spirit.- Helen Keller
----------------------------------Give a man a mask and he will tell you the truth.Oscar Wilde
----------------------------------Aikido is the art of reconciliation.
--Whoever has the mind to fight has broken his
connection with the universe.
--If you try to dominate people, you are already
defeated.
--We study how to resolve conflict, not how to start it.
----------------------------------Top 10 military spenders in 2008 ($ billion) per
commondreams.org1 USA 6072 China 84.93 France
65.74 UK 65.35 Russia 58.66 Germany 46.87 Japan
46.38 Italy 40.69 Saudi Arabia 38.210 India 30
----------------------------------Philosophy is like a window pane.
--We see truth throughit but it still separates us from
truth.
--To experience the truth, you have to go outside.Kahlil Gibran
----------------------------------Variable-rate loans are dangerous for the same
reason adjustable-rate mortgages are dangerous.
----------------------------------If you have the courage to begin, you have the
courage to succeed.
----------------------------------The top 25 lenders of subprime mortgages that
triggered the global economic meltdown spent $370
million dollars over the past 10 years lobbying
congress for deregulation.
--The banks that owned or financed those lenders are
being bailed out by taxpayer dollars.
--Citibank $50 Billion bailoutGoldman Sachs $10
Billion bailoutWells Fargo $25 Billion bailoutJP
Morgan Chase $25 Billion bailoutBank of America
$52.5 Billion bailoutMay 10, 2009: a bill that would
enable desperate homeowners to renegotiate their
mortgage payments in bankruptcy court was voted
down (51 to 45) due to lobbying from the banking
industry.
--By the way, it is currently legal to renegotiate the
mortgage on your second home in bankruptcy court.
--This means that if you are rich enough to own a
second home, the bankruptcy court can bring the
payments down to fit your means.
--Whereas if you are poor and own only one home,
the bankruptcy court is powerless to help you.
--For the record: There have been 800,000
foreclosures in the first 3 months of 2009.
-----------------------------------To find better waters the little vessel of my life now
hoists her sails, as I leave behind her a sea so cruel.Dante Alighieri
----------------------------------all that I have written seems like straw to me- Thomas
Aquinas
----------------------------------Being an artist means ceasing to take seriously that
very serious person we are when we are not an
artist.- Jose Ortega y Gasset
----------------------------------A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his
opportunities and an optimist is one who makes
opportunities of his difficulties.
--- Harry Truman
----------------------------------To fail is a natural consequence of trying, To succeed
takes time and prolonged effort in the face of
unfriendly odds.
--To think it will be any other way, no matter what you
do, is to invite yourself to be hurt and to limit your
enthusiasm for trying again
----------------------------------Find the seed at the bottom of your heart and bring
forth a flower.
----------------------------------Any idiot can face a crisis.
--It is this day to day living that wears you out.
--Anton Chekhov
----------------------------------Others will underestimate us, for although we judge
ourselvesby what we feel capable of doing, others
judge us only bywhat we have already done.
----------------------------------The damnedest thing about life is that when
everything seems to be without hope, then, another
door opens.
-----------------------------------To know and not to do is essentially not to know.Confuscious
----------------------------------"I can't do it" never yet accomplished anything.
--"I will try" has accomplished wonders.
----------------------------------Napoleon was discussing the plans of a battle with his
generals when one of them asked if a different course
of action was needed in light of the circumstances.
--He replied, "Circumstances? I make circumstances"
----------------------------------Nothing will sustain you more potently than the power
to recognize in your daily routine the true poetry of
life.
----------------------------------In bullfighting there is a moment where the bull
shakes off his confusion and gathers his strength.
--It is called the Gerencia.
--He becomes very dangerous when this happens.
--The matador must prevent the bull from reaching the
Gerencia and keep him confused.
-----------------------------------With or without religion, you would have good people
doing good things and evil people doing evil things.
--But for good people to do evil things, that takes
religion.
----------------------------------Example is not the main thing in influencing others;
it's the only thing.- Albert Schweitzer
----------------------------------Never let the odds keep you from pursuing what you
know in your heart you were meant to do. - Leroy
"Satchel" Paige
----------------------------------The future is not written.
--There is no fate other than what we make for
ourselves.
--– The Terminator
----------------------------------Every great person in history was once a nobody that
took advantage of an opportunity
----------------------------------Chance favors the prepared mind-Louis Pasteur
----------------------------------I was influencing people to buy things they didn’t need
with money they didn’t have.-Former ad executive
----------------------------------The basic, primeval, essence of the universe is sexual
energy.
----------------------------------The human psyche creates a Supreme Being in
accordance with its wishes.
-Sigmund Freud
----------------------------------Living with a saint is more grueling than being one.
----------------------------------In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do
is theright thing.
--The worst thing you can do is nothing- Theodore
Roosevelt
----------------------------------Mark how fleeting is the human condition: yesterday
in embryo, tomorrow just ashes.
--So for the hair’s breadth of time assigned to you live
rationally and leave cheerfully, like the ripe olive,
praising the season that bore it and the tree that
matured it.- Marcus Aurelius
----------------------------------If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need
not fear the outcome of a hundred battles.If you know
yourself, but do not know your enemy, for every
victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.If you know
neither yourself nor the enemy, you will succumb in
every battle.
--Sun Tsu, the art of war
----------------------------------In 1923 a physician/poet was attending to a sick child.
--He did all that he could, walked over to the window,
looked out and wrote this poem:So much depends
upon a red wheelbarrowglazed with rain waterbeside
the white chickens
-----------------------------------
The culmination of decades of accumulated
overspending by the government has created an
aggregate debt for the United States federal and state
governments of $14 trillion dollars.
--That’s fourteen million million dollars.
--Or, to put it in a more personal scale, more than
$48,000 for every single living human being in the
United States, plus the accumulating interest.The
interest on that government debt now exceeds all the
personal income tax collected by that government.
--That means that the government isn’t keeping up
with the interest on the debt, let alone able to pay
down the principle.
--Even before the wars started with lies, the US
Government was sinking deeper into debt by one third
of a trillion dollars every year.
--With Bush’s war, the debt is increasing at another
half trillion every year just at the Federal level.
--And because the federal Government, struggling
with payments on past debts, is sending less money
back to the states, the states are sinking deeper into
debt as well.
----------------------------------Man can live without air for seconds, without water for
days,without food for weeks, and without ideas for
years
----------------------------------Mexican immigrants send money back home peaking at $24 billion in 2006 (Western Union
charges between 3 and 8%).
--It is becoming an ever more important support for an
otherwise increasingly dysfunctional economy.
-- The consensus estimate of researchers is that 20
per cent of Mexican families - many among the
nation's poorest - now depend significantly on
remittances for their basic incomes.
-- Since many transfers are made through illegal and
other channels not counted by the gatherers of
statistics, it is certain that all official estimates are in
fact underestimates of the actual remittance flows and
their importance.
----------------------------------The common man must fear life, fear death, fear God,
fear the devil, and most of all fear his overlords, the
keepers of his destiny.
-----------------------------------Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of
a fire. - William Butler Yeats
----------------------------------It is like taking a flashlight into a dark room and
searching when all you are looking for is a flashlight.
-----------------------------------I don't use drugs, my dreams are frightening enough.MC Escher
----------------------------------There are environments that when you walk through
them, the physical objects look upon you with
affection.- Charles Baudelaire
----------------------------------Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this
time more intelligently.
--– Henry Ford
----------------------------------Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is
what wedo not want to know.
--- Eric Hoffer
----------------------------------In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes
a revolutionary act.
--- George Orwell
----------------------------------I wouldn't exactly make FDR a saint.
--During his tenure, Congressman Louis T.
--McFadden was launching an investigation into John
D.
--Rockefeller and Bernard M.
--Baruch who withdrew their substantial holdings in
the stock market causing brokers to call in their
margins which led to the crash of 1929.
--In 1933 both Rockefeller and Baruch bought scores
of desperate companies for pennies on the dollar and
quadrupled their fortunes.
--Before McFadden's hearings got underway, he died
of food poisoning.
--FDR did nothing to look into the cause of his death.
-----------------------------------Your heart gives you better counsel than all the
world’s sages.- The Talmud
----------------------------------Every seed has a feeling of the tree that it will one day
become.
----------------------------------Some architecture emphasizes the insignificance of
the individual when compared to the might of the
state.
----------------------------------One does not become enlightened by imagining
figures of light.
--Rather, by making the darkness conscious.- Karl
Jung
----------------------------------Those who, rely upon themselves only, and don’t look
for assistance from anyone besides themselves, will
reach the top-most height.- Buddha
----------------------------------Fuzzy Logic vs.
--Two Valued LogicIf your job is to put the white
cubes in one box and the black cubes in another box,
what do you do when you encounter a gray cube?
Fuzzy logic is seeing each box as a percentage of
white and a percentage of black.
--Fuzzy logic also can be applied to right and wrong.
-----------------------------------The invisible real that hurts.
----------------------------------We bumped chests in the manner of victorious
cavemen.
----------------------------------Sorry, I was taking life seriously.You may say that I
am a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.
-----------------------------------Revolution is not an event.It is a process.
----------------------------------Our country is not the only thing to which we owe
ourallegiance.
--It is also owed to justice and to humanity.
----------------------------------Former Sen.
--Phil Gramm, R-Texas, general co-chair of McCain's
presidential campaign.
--Before he retired from the Senate in 2002, he wrote
the Gramm-Bliley bill, an act broadly deregulating the
financial industry - and now blamed by many
economists for the epidemic of speculation and fraud
that has shaken the global economy.
--Just one year after the former chair of the Senate
Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs Committee left
Congress, he went on to work for Swiss Bank UBS,
which was able to acquire brokerage firm Paine
Webber in part because of Gramm's legislation.
--He played a central role in UBS's investment
banking branch and became an in-house lobbyist with
unprecedented connections.
--Starting in 2004, he lobbied his former colleagues
on the issues he knew best-banking, housing, finance
and trade issues.
--Since 2004, UBS has spent $3.3 million on lobbying
efforts.
--According to The Politico, during that time "the
mortgage industry pressed Congress to roll back
strong state rules that sought to stem the rise of
predatory tactics used by lenders and brokers to
place homeowners in high-cost mortgages."
----------------------------------If you don't like the way the world is, you change it.
--And you do it one step at a time.
----------------------------------The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other
sideof the fence.
--Fences have nothing to do with it.
--The grass isgreenest where it is watered.
--When crossing over fences,carry water with you and
tend the grass wherever you may be.
----------------------------------Live your questions now.
--Some day in the future, you will gradually without
even noticing it, live your way into the answers.Rainer
Maria Rilke
----------------------------------a young would-be composer wrote to Mozart asking
advice as to how to compose a symphony.
--Mozart responded that a symphony was a complex
and demanding form and that it would be better to
start with something simpler.
--The young man protested, 'But Herr Mozart, you
wrote symphonies when you were younger than I am
now.' And Mozart replied, 'I never asked anyone how.'
----------------------------------There is only one success: to be able to spend your
life in your own way, and not to give others absurd
maddening claims upon it.
--– Christopher Morley
----------------------------------If the sight of the blue sky fills you with joy, if you can’t
help but notice the grass springing up in the fields,
your soul is alive.
----------------------------------Being defeated is only a temporary condition.
--Giving up is what makes it permanent.
----------------------------------Our lives begin to end the day we become silent
about injustice
- Martin Luther King.
-----------------------------------When an inner situation is not made conscious, it
appears outside of you as fate.
--– Karl Jung (the energy of our minds is linked to the
energy that runs the world)
----------------------------------God is not what you imagine or what you think you
understand.
-- If you understand you have failed.
-- ~Saint Augustine
----------------------------------In a good photograph, if you look closely at the face,
you will see your own history.Ani DiFranco
----------------------------------I place the responsibility on the advertising industry
which is the main way the corporate ruling class
controls the desires of the population.
--In 1980 twenty eight billion dollars was spent on
advertising in the US.
--In 2007, the figure climbed to 241 billion.
--The message is very simple, buy the product and
you will get the dream associated with the product.
--For example, many physicians are reporting that
women patients are asking for Viagara - for
themselves.
--The advertising tells them little about the product
except that it produces a loving relationship with their
partner.
--It takes the FDA six months to reach a decision on
whether an ad is deceptive.
--The life span of an ad is 4 months at the most.
--Nice watchdog, huh?Here is another most disturbing
statistic.
--By the time the average American reaches age 50,
they will have spent 3 full years of their life watching
advertising.
--And yet, poll after poll reveals that over 80% say "I
don't pay attention to the ads".
--Yeah, right.
--I have a friend who moved back from NY City and
said "It was like living in one gigantic commercial.
--Everywhere you looked.
--Even in elevators and restrooms.
--I couldn't take it."A Zen master once said "You don't
wake up from the dream.
--Nobody does.
--You wake up to the fact that the dream is not real." I
know what he meant.
-----------------------------------There's a difference between being happy and
cheerful.
--A happy person has no cares at all.
--A cheerful person has cares but has learned how to
deal with them.
----------------------------------Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will
make me go in a corner and cry by myself for hours.
----------------------------------Normal is nothing more than a cycle on a washing
machine.
----------------------------------You have to admit that most women who have done
something with their lives have been disliked by
almost everyone.
- Francoise Gilot
----------------------------------There is a trash heap of literature of those who have
been concerned about the opinion of others. Virginia Woolf, 1882 - 1941
----------------------------------An atheist is someone who explains life, the universe
and everything in natural terms.
-----------------------------------The only way of discovering the limits of the possible
is to venture a little way past them into the impossible
-Arthur C.
--Clarke
----------------------------------I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life.
-It's just been too intelligent to come here.
--Arthur C.
--Clarke
----------------------------------Three old guys are out walking.
First one says, "Windy, isn't it?"
Second one says, "No, it's Thursday"
Third one says, "So am I. Let's go get a beer."
----------------------------------If you haven’t found the time to do something, forget
it.
--If you really want time, you must make it.
----------------------------------The greatest art is that which strikes the imagination
with the power of a soul that refuses to admit defeat
even in the midst of a collapsing world.
Nietzsche
----------------------------------The four positive experiences are Humor, wonder, the
erotic and heroic (heroic means accepting ones
experience)
The four negative experiences are Anger, fear,
disgust and sorrow.
Tranquility is at the center.
--
----------------------------------Our minds are continually active, fabricating an
anxious, self preoccupied veil which partially conceals
the world.
-----------------------------------The ordinary acts we practice every day at home are
of more importance to the soul than their simplicity
might suspect.
-- Thomas Moore
----------------------------------Chasing after fantasies is a bad idea.
--Stick with reality.
--Reality is all you’ve got.
--But here’s the real secret, the real miracle: It’s
enough.
-- Brad Warner
----------------------------------I have traveled so much, I have seen more than I
remember.
--And, the older I get, I seem to remember more than I
have seen.
- Marco Polo
----------------------------------Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the
other person
to die.
----------------------------------We should all get two educations.
--One to teach us how to make a
living and the other how to live.
--
----------------------------------In 1900 Georg Cantor’s Continuum Hypothesis (Is still
not proven) compares different infinite sets.
In 1931 Kurt Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem (in all
systems of logic there will be some insolvable
problems)
In 1950 Alan Turing proved there is no way of telling
which will be the insolvable problems.
-----------------------------------You can fail many times, but aren’t a failure until you
begin to
blame someone else.
----------------------------------Flow with whatever is happening and let your mind be
free.
Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing.
-- Chuang Tzu, 369 - 286 BC
----------------------------------If you stand up and state your opinion, you may get
yourself knocked down.
--However, a man flattened by
an opponent can get up again.
--A man flattened by conformity
stays down for good.
----------------------------------We all navigate our way cautiously through a world of
symbols, dollars, minutes, numbers, images and
words that are constantly being told to us to squeeze
the most profit from every conceivable situation.
Insanity is a perfectly natural adjustment to this totally
unnatural and negative environment.– Michael
Tsarion
----------------------------------If you only knew the effects of generosity, you would
not let a meal go by without sharing it.
--- Buddha
----------------------------------In June 1796 Napoleon conquered Italy.
--He was appalled by the walled ghettos and special
yellow bonnets that Jews had to wear.
--He issued a decree that Jews were allowed to
practice their religion and travel anywhere they
wanted to.
--He then abolished the Italian Inquisition.
-In 1808 Napoleon conquered Spain.
--He appointed his brother as king.
--He abolished the inquisition there and seized its
records.
--It revealed that 85,000 were arrested, 12,000 of
which were executed.
-----------------------------------You look a bit disoriented, like you were kidnapped by
aliens and then released unharmed.
-----------------------------------Our own lives are the instruments
with which we experiment with truth.
Thich Nhat Hahn
----------------------------------Remember me as you watch the rain,
Remember me when the wind
sweeps the snow drifts,
Remember me in the sweltering heat,
Remember me when others have forgotten about me.
Remember me when no letters come to you.
For I will return.
And when my friends,
compliment me
for my endurance,
for beating the odds,
and for staying vibrant
in the midst of death.
I will smile because
they do not know the secret.
Only you and I know will know the secret
of how I survived.
It is that you remembered
when no one else did.
-It is a poem about a returning World War Two soldier
by Yevgeny Yevtushenko:
Let them slap me on the back,
tell me I was lucky
and toast to my good fortune.
-They simply do not know the secret
of how I survived.
-Only you and I
know that secret.
-It was that
I knew
you were there for me
when no one else was.
-----------------------------------
Every man must learn
what the blues is about
the pain you must live with
and the woman you can’t live without.
----------------------------------".
--.
--.
--I entered the palaces, the squares, the temples.
-- I stood before thrones, altars and pulpits.
-- I saw the laborer a slave to the merchant, the
merchant a slave to the soldier, the soldier a slave to
the general, the general a slave to the king, the king a
slave to the priest, the priest a slave to the idol, the
idol shaped from dust by devils and raised above a
hill of dead men's skulls."
".
--.
--.
--everywhere I saw slavery being carried in
processions towards the altars and being called
"god".
-- They poured libations of wine and perfume at its
feet and called it "angel".
-- They burned incense before its image and called it
"prophet".
-- They fell down prostrate before it and called it the
"holy law".
-- They fought and killed for it and called it
"patriotism".
-- They submitted to its will and called it "the shadow
of God on Earth".
-- Indeed, it has many names and but one reality,
many manifestations of a single substance.
-- It is a single disease, eternal without beginning,
without end, appearing with many contradictory
symptoms and differing sores, inherited from the
fathers by the sons as they inherit the breath of life.
-- The ages receive its seeds in the soil of the ages,
just as the seasons reap what the seasons have
sown,"
- Kahil Gibran
----------------------------------The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones
who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved,
desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who
never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn,
burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles
exploding like spiders across the stars and in the
middle you see the blue center light pop and
everybody goes "Ahhh"
- Jack Kerouac
----------------------------------Our super patriot corporate leaders
have taken to abandoning our country
and exporting our jobs to China, Mexico and South
Korea
where they can get people to work for slave labor
wages.
-----------------------------------Time rushes forward from the past
(which no longer exists)
Into the present
(which has no duration)
And into the future
(that does not yet exist)
- St.
--Augustine
----------------------------------Corporations have all the rights of individual persons
under our Constitution.
--This has codified and consolidated corporate power
so that it controls our lives in almost every meaningful
way.
--It controls the election funds of our candidates, and
them once they are in office.
--It controls our major media including public
broadcasting.
--It controls the content of our television programming.
--It controls how are tax dollars are spent making sure
that the richest get the most welfare.
--It controls the laws, the courts, the prison system
and the mind numbing propaganda that we are the
greatest democracy on earth.
--It controls the values with which we raise our
children.
--It controls our ability to dispense justice.
--It controls how we treat nature, how we deface our
land with strip malls, and blow the tops off our
mountains ˜ a form of corporate free speech.
--It dictates our modes of transportation.
--It controls our inability to respond to true crises like
climate change.
--It attempts to create a spiritual deficiency in every
person that can be filled and healed only with “stuff”
and no stuff is ever enough.
People create what looks to be a nifty machine, a
robot, called the corporation.
--Over time, the robots get together and overpower
the people.
--For a century, the robots propagandize and
indoctrinate each generation of people so they grow
up believing that robots are people too, gifts from God
and Mother Nature; that they are inevitable and the
source of all that is good.
--How odd that we have been so gullible, so docile,
obedient.
We are told the threats are grave.
--So we fork over our money and children’s lives for
war and weapons.
--We are told that we are building security and peace.
--More lives.
--More weapons.
--What we aren’t told is that the largest US export to
the world is weapons and that enormous fortunes are
being made from the arms trade.
--What we aren’t told is that the more precarious and
unstable the world is, the better the business for the
arms dealers, that the real promotion is not for
security and peace but insecurity and war, that the
lives of our children are the necessary collateral
damage for this monster.
--What we aren’t told is that the only real security is in
cooperation, conservation, and fairness, not
imperialism.
-The neocons have claimed, with some accuracy, that
they can create reality faster than we can react: the
deed is done, now deal with it.
--The troops have invaded, Halliburton, Blackwater,
and Lockheed signed their contracts, the prisoners
are tortured, your email is bugged, the resources for
social programs are gone, the laws are changed, the
Wal-Mart is built, the sludge dump has already
polluted the aquifer, truth is hollowed out ˜- catch me
if you can
The cooks & the crooks create a new status quo,
legalize it, propagandize it, mythologize it,
fundamentalize it, slather it with fear and patriotism,
and force feed it to the complacent, sedated cow we
call America.
-I want to be part of a conspiracy.
--Pervasive, populist, revolutionary, and totally
transparent.
--Grassroots.
--Idealistic.
--Simplistic.
--Life-affirming.
--Community building.
--A conspiracy to make the common good and the
love of nature the common denominator of every
economic transaction.
----------------------------------Sometimes the hypocrisy comes down so heavy that
you have to wear a hat.
----------------------------------8/30/07 – The world’s largest cigarette maker, Phillip
Morris, is moving its corporate headquarters to
Switzerland where it will no longer be susceptible to
lawsuits or government regulation.
-----------------------------------The oil that comes out of the Alaskan pipeline belongs
to the oil company that drills for it, not the American
people.
--The oil company then puts that oil on the world
market, not on the American market.
-----------------------------------If people are addicted to drugs, the solution is to cut
off the supply.
If people are addicted to oil, the solution is to increase
the supply.
----------------------------------Documentary: Oil on Ice
“The choice is between bringing in the oil rigs,
pipelines and refineries which will sustain the native
people until the oil runs out OR letting the native
people continue to live off the land which will sustain
them indefinitely.”
----------------------------------Anything can be great.
--I don't care, BRICKLAYING can be great, if you got
it down.
--If you know what you doing and why and if you can
make it happen.
--It's a great feeling, boy, it's a real great feeling when
you've got it DOWN and you KNOW you've got it
down.
--The pool cue's part of me.
--You know, it's a pool cue, but it's got nerves in it.
--It's a piece of wood, but it's got nerves in it.
--Feel the roll of those balls, you don't have to look,
you just KNOW.
- Paul Newman in the Hustler
----------------------------------In the past 40 years, we have lost
97% of the Bob-o-link bird in the US
87% of the Meadow Lark bird in the US
----------------------------------At the rate Americans are gaining weight, by the year
2015,
75% of Americans will be overweight
41% of Americans will be obese
----------------------------------You can see it in all history
Among the bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
----------------------------------VNR = Video News Release.
These are made by PR firms and they look like actual
news stories.
----------------------------------If Americans, at six percent of the world‚s population,
need to consume about a quarter of its wealth and
resources to maintain our standard of living, the idea
of the rest of the world even approaching our levels of
consumption, energy usage and exploitation of land,
water, resources and people would mean the end of
civilization, if not most life on the planet, in a very
short period of time.
----------------------------------In 2005 the average CEO earned 13.5 million dollars
per year.
This means they earned as much in one day as the
average worker earned in one year.
-Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass.,
introduced a bill March 1 in response to shareholder
advocates who have been calling for "say-on-pay"
votes to dampen the growth of compensation
packages.
John Castellani, president of the Business
Roundtable, told Congress on Thursday
"Corporations were never designed to be
democracies," whose organization (the Business
Roundtable) represents chief executives of large U.S.
--companies.
-----------------------------------Public relations technique: BLOCK AND BRIDGE
You block the road that you don’t want to go down
and then build a bridge to the road that you do want to
go down.
“The important point to understand is…”
“What we really want to do as a country is…”
----------------------------------A church steeple with a lightning rod on it shows a
lack of confidence.
-----------------------------------Jews don’t recognize Christ as the Messiah.
Protestants don’t recognize the Pope as the head of
Christianity.
Born Again Christians don’t recognize each other in
the liquor store or the porno store.
-----------------------------------It is like having sex with your sock,
You’ve got it covered,
But it doesn’t feel satisfactory.
----------------------------------You’ve got footprints in my memories.
That seem to endure with the passage of time.
Since you walked out of my life
And out of my world.
Please, walk on out of my mind.
-Waylon Jennings
----------------------------------Breakdown the sick rationale responsible for the
suffering in the world.
Start by inventing fresh forms of communication.
Take language away from the governing class.
Subject it to the imagination, to the turbulence of the
mind.
If you take back communication from the controlling
forces,
you breakdown their weary logic.
You breakdown their repressive structure
----------------------------------Disparity between the rich and the poor is the worst
ailment that can beset any republic.
-Plutarch 100 AD
----------------------------------Our own lives are the instruments through which we
experiment with Truth.
-Tich Nhat Hahn
----------------------------------Follow the principles outlined in the Hippie
Declaration of Independence:
The pursuit of Joy.
The freedom of Body.
The expansion of Consciousness.
----------------------------------Martin Luther (1483-1546):
The Jews and Their Lies (1543)
----------------------------------Proof that believing in God has no affect on morality:
In 1998 James Kopp murdered Dr.
--Barnett Slepian
In 1994 Baruch Goldstein, took a sub machine gun
into the mosque of the Cave of the patriarchs and
killed 29 Palestinian Muslims who had been at prayer,
as well as injuring 125 others, before being
bludgeoned to death by survivors.
-----------------------------------Increase in Income 1979-2004 after taxes:
Top 1% wealthiest Americans income jumped 176%
Average middle class Americans income jumped 21%
----------------------------------Suffering = FADS frustration, alienation,
dissatisfaction, stress
----------------------------------Were the universe not so very large, I would be quite
proud.
-- Robb Nesbitt
----------------------------------Studies already suggest that the ranges of species
are shifting towards the poles at around six kilometers
a decade, but what will happen when the rate of
change intensifies?
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) and the National Academy of Sciences predict
that by 2100, between 12% and 39% of the land
surface of the Earth will have a new climate, while the
combination of climatic conditions on 10%-48% of the
planet will have disappeared altogether.
--This is using one of the IPCC’s business-as-usual
global development scenarios.
--Using a different scenario that assumes more
environmentally friendly development, the
corresponding predictions are 4% to 20%.
----------------------------------It is difficult to get a man to understand something
If his salary depends on him not understanding it.
-Upton Sinclair
----------------------------------Learn to live like a lotus flower,
Untouched by the filthy water
From which it draws its nourishment.
--Bhavagad Gita
----------------------------------The way you look at things
Affects the things you look at
----------------------------------Shalom Secunda was a songwriter at the turn of the
century.
--He needed money badly and a friend offered to buy
one of his songs (Bei Mir Bist Du Schon) for $30.00.
--He took the money.
--His friend sold it to a record company.
--The Andrews Sisters recorded it and it made over a
million dollars.
--Shalom's mother felt God was punishing her for
some sin she committed.
--The following year another friend introduced Shalom
to an undiscovered song writer.
--He encouraged them to team up and write for
Broadway.
--The songwriter wanted to, but Shalom didn't like the
jazz influence in his music.
--(Jazz was considered low class music before 1920.)
He turned the offer down.
--That songwriter was George Gershwin.
--A few years later, upon hearing of Gershwin's string
of successes, Shalom's mother went insane.
-----------------------------------That is something that the existentialists have written
about extensively: how our choices affect what
happens to us and what it does to our minds when it
seems like our choices seem to have no affect.
--For example, runner Jim Fixx ate healthy, exercised
and got plenty of sleep.
--He wrote numerous books about how to stay
healthy.
--He died of a heart attack at age 52 after a morning
run.
--As expected, many stand up comedians jumped on
the news, implying that what you do has no effect on
what will happen to you.
--But if you look a little deeper, Jim Fixx's father died
of a heart attack at age 43.
--So maybe, he did extend his life with his choices.
Sartre, Camus and Merleau-Ponty all are in favor of
not giving up and making choices like you can have
an effect on what happens to you.
--They consider it the essence of freedom: resisting
the overwhelming, unpredictable nature of reality.
-----------------------------------A softness of intimacy overcame her, as she stood
before a tumbling heap of pink petals.
--Suddenly she was touching them, soft as velvet,
touching them thoughtfully, without knowing, as a
mother sometimes fondles the hand of her child.
She looked at him heavily, dumbly, and laid her head
on his shoulder.
--He held her fast as he looked round.
--They were safe enough from all but the small, lonely
cows over the river.
--He sunk his mouth on her throat, where he felt her
heavy pulse beat under his lips.
--Everything was perfectly still.
--There was nothing in the afternoon but themselves.
D.H.
--Lawrence from “Sons and Lovers”
----------------------------------Thank the devil
and thank the bluebird
in the mouth of the cat
with the tender whisters
and the padded feet
of death.
----------------------------------Soon, we were sailing on the SS Confusion.
-----------------------------------Between the rocking of the cradle and the rolling of
the grave
----------------------------------Better to light one candle than to curse the vast
darkness
----------------------------------It is easier to destroy the light inside of you, than to
defeat the darkness that is all around you.
----------------------------------We must go
While the evening is spread against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
We must go through half-deserted streets,
that follow like a tedious argument
That lead us to an overwhelming question...
-Only, do not ask, `` What is it? ''
We must go, we have made our visit.
The yellow fog that rubs its muzzle on the windowpanes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening.
-Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains.
-Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
And indeed there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me.
-And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, ``Do I dare?'' and, ``Do I dare?''
Time to turn back and descend the stair
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will
reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
-So how should I presume?
And I have known the eyes already, known them allThe eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
And how should I presume?
And I have known the arms already, known them allArms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair]
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
-And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
.
-- .
-- .
-- .
-- .
-Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow
streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of
windows? .
--.
--.
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
-.
-- .
-- .
-- .
-- .
-And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep.
--.
--.
--tired .
--.
--.
--or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
-Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald]
brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet-and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat,
and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and
me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: `` I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all''If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: ``That is not what I meant at all.
-That is not it, at all.''
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled
streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that
trail along the floorAnd this, and so much more?It is impossible to say just what I mean
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns
on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow, or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
``That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.''
.
-- .
-- .
-- .
-- .
-No I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculousAlmost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old .
--.
--.
--I grow old .
--.
--.
-I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the
beach.
-I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
----------------------------------For the prosperity of 300 million people five billion
must be sacrificed, their lands pillaged, resources
stolen, their nations made subservient vassal states
squeezed of their energy, their soils despoiled, air
poisoned, water made toxic.
-- Billions of human beings make two dollars or less a
day, with billions making a dollar more, all living on
fumes, finding food from the garbage heaps of
society, forced to become the automatons churning
America’s unending addiction to materialistic goods,
transforming thinking flesh into robotic automation,
becoming the slaves of the Empire, of the Pax
Americana, the only nation blessed by the Christian
god.
----------------------------------Bin Laden teaches that the US is predatory power,
That it seeks to occupy other countries to steal their
resources
And in the process destroys their religion.
--
----------------------------------Until he becomes another person
aching in one place
alone
untouched
unspoken to
watering a plant.
And his nights will be
black
and long
and sleepless.
And his days will be
without end.
----------------------------------I like the guy in the movies
who plays the piano
with his drink on the lid
in some bar in China or Manilla
with cigarette dangling.
-While the dope dealers
killers
and international spies
decide the fate of
whores and nations,
the piano player tickels out a tune.
A blonde in a banana-colored dress,
v-neck to her belly button,
Eyebrows plucked away
leans against the piano
like a limp decibel.
She is singing a song
when a stranger comes in
He nods at the piano player
through squinted eyes.
The piano player nods back
as the stranger and the singer
walk off to a back room
together.
The piano player begins another tune
and I think “Jesus, he should have her”
But he’s not in a hurry
about anything
he doesn’t worry about the Nazis
or a better world
or how to act tough enough to attract a woman
in a banana colored dress.
He has that satisfied smile,
wears comfortable suspenders
and you realize that all he finally wants
is that drink on the piano
and then to play another tune.
He knows the price of everything else:
too much
The piano player seems content enough
and then somebody asks for
a new tune
and he plays it
after sipping the drink
and lighting a cigarette.
He plays it good and easy,
asks for nothing,
gives hope to all those
who have no chance,
who ask for nothing at all
who just ask for someplace
to sit quietly and wait
for the slanting sun
moving on the wall
or for the peace
of the soft rain.
----------------------------------Feeling unsafe, unprotected, subject to arbitrary
violence and hated.
-----------------------------------All matter is merely energy condensed to a slow
vibration.
-We are all one consciousness experiencing itself
subjectively.
-There is no such thing as death.
Life is only a dream and we are the imagination of
ourselves.
----------------------------------Kahlil Gibran wrote "One day your life will end.
--And all that will remain are those moments in which
you have lived your life to its fullest.
--And if you are lucky, those moments will have been
shared by all the people you have touched."
----------------------------------A vagina
It has the original mouth
but remains wordless;
It is surrounded by
a magnificent mound of hair.
Sentient beings
can get completely lost in it
It is also the birthplace
of all the Buddhas
----------------------------------The best sex
rescrambles our brains
and changes the way we look at ourselves
and the world.
-It is not about fulfilling our fantasies,
but about absorbing us so deeply
that all thinking is forgotten
----------------------------------Don’t cry because it is over.
-Smile because it happened.
-----------------------------------Even the smallest flower can give thoughts that lie too
deep for tears
- Wordsworth
----------------------------------When you have seized a disproportionate share of the
world’s wealth, you have to constantly be on guard
against people who want to rectify that or are
embittered by that
----------------------------------The politicians listen to the people who pay for their
views to be heard.
-----------------------------------I turned into a tiny point of consciousness
like the dot on a TV set that had just been turned off
----------------------------------You will never know anything about a butterfly if all
you have seen is a few frames in the life of a
caterpillar.
----------------------------------Our enemies are innovative and resourceful
And so are we
They never stop thinking of ways to harm America
and its people
And neither do we
----------------------------------The unconscious is everything I know but am not at
the moment thinking.
-----------------------------------You are not alone
When they halved the apple,
your part
contained the worm.
Each of us
has his designated place,
and yours
is at the end of the line…
a long, long, line,
an almost endless line
in the worst possible weather.
Your place
in the scheme of things
will go unrecorded.
It’s the way things work.
It’s pure chance.
Tossed into a boiling cauldron,
you will eventually
be forgotten
like last week’s dream.
You have a billion names
and as many faces.
You are not alone.
Just look around.
----------------------------------The faces that follow us
It's a curious thing.
The same horrors
that plagued you
in childhood
continue
in different ways,
with different faces
that have the same voice,
the same complaints,
the same hatreds,
the same uninspired banter.
And how easily those faces
grow angry
over the slightest
triviality.
And how joyless,
how consistently joyless
and dull
those faces are.
Must we go
to the grave
forever followed
by those faces?
----------------------------------Die on me
Die on me
As the river floats
Out to the sea
Floats on down
With bodies and trees.
The sea cleans
All the catastrophes
Gather around
And pile on me
Protect me
From what death
Is trying to do to me.
Pile on me.
I die under you
unless I have
A heap of love atop me.
----------------------------------A silver airplane
sails my brain
and
as my father opens a door from hell
and screams my name
up from below,
I know that it is time to
accept what is true:
although there can be no
reconciliation between us
to carp about old wounds is
a stupid waste of the heart.
The silver airplane
flies away
and disappears over Brazil.
I close my eyes
as the light fails in the eye
of the falcon
and the useless anger of the living
for the dead
is
lost
forever.
-----------------------------------If each man had
a beautiful girl
all to himself
in his bedroom,
he would then not have
to deal with such things
as PMS, relatives, selflove, ambition, the fact that she
was only a bundle of intestines and
other sundry parts, or remember that
beautiful girls must be faithfully and
continually adored
for the beauty they
never earned.
Yes, a beautiful girl
forever shaking her butt
in his bedroom forever
fucking her forever
bang bang bang
nothing but that –
no fights, no farts, no
dark nights, no cousins, no mothers,
no other lovers, no pregnancies, no
madness while gradually growing
old, no toothaches, no snoring,
no dull endless tv nights.
Just one perfect beautiful girl
for each man
in his bedroom
forever
In his bedroom
forever
----------------------------------Half of all species could be exterminated by 2100.
-- The U.S.
--is the biggest arms dealer in the world, selling
billions of dollars of weaponry, much of it to
nondemocratic regimes and armies whose soldiers
commit human-rights abuses.
-- Over 80 million Americans live on incomes
estimated by the U.S.
--Department of Labor to be below a 'comfortable
adequacy.
I'm not suggesting that everything is always sweet
and wonderful for everyone, but rather that we'd be
smart to aggressively identify all the ways the world is
teeming with beauty and joy and mystery as well.
-- To do so would counterbalance the hordes of
cynical storytellers in the media and entertainment
industries who relentlessly assure us that life on earth
is a dismal hell.
----------------------------------Our system of privately financed campaigns has shut
regular people out of any meaningful participation in
democracy.
--Less than one-half of one percent of all Americans
made a political contribution of $200 or more to a
federal candidate in 2004.
--When the average cost of winning a seat in the
House of Representatives has topped $1 million, we
can no longer refer to that chamber as "The People's
House." Congress belongs to the highest bidder.
At the same time that the cost of getting elected is
exploding beyond the reach of ordinary people, the
business of influencing our elected representatives
has become a growth industry.
--Since President Bush was elected the number of
registered lobbyists in Washington has more than
doubled.
--That's 16,342 lobbyists in 2000 and 34,785 last year
(2005): 65 lobbyists for every member of Congress.
--The total spent per month by special interests
wining, dining, and seducing federal officials is now
nearly $200 million.
--Per month.
----------------------------------The truth will even make the devil blush.
-Shakespeare
----------------------------------True art is art that leads, art that is hot.
-Whereas we are mostly surrounded by art that is cool.
So cool, it is a stronghold of composure.
-It doesn't want to lead.
--
It just wants to be there,
decorating our isolated and difficult lives,
dispensing wisdom that has no applicability.
-Shake things up.
Change.
Give ourselves over to what we do not comprehend.
What we comprehend, we don’t understand anyway.
Our logic is false.
It is dualistic and systematic.
Open things up.
The balloon bursts if it becomes too rigid.
-Breathe.
To: Connie, Sue Marie
----------------------------------The US has 700 military bases scattered throughout
the world (that they will admit to).
--The official line is that these bases are there to
"protect American interests".
--I am not sure how to translate that phrase except to
say except to say that the US is a lot like the Roman
Empire or the British Empire.
--Our colonists are fighting back.
--Our government calls it terrorism and calls them evil
doers.
The military budget is starting to bankrupt the country.
--It equals just less than half of total military spending
on the Earth.
--Odd, but Iraq before we invaded had an economy
the size of the state of Louisiana and Afghanistan was
certainly one of the poorest places on the planet.
--And yet these two places have stymied the most
powerful military on the planet.
-The military budget is being used to fund four
industries (Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop
Grumman, General Dynamics) One of the few things
the US still manufactures reasonably effectively is
weapons.
--It's a huge export business, the deals are negotiated
not by the companies but directly by the Pentagon.
--(That's supposed to be capitalism? This country
stopped being capitalistic decades ago.)
The most insidious aspect of US militarism and the
US military empire is that we can't get off it any more
because we'd collapse as an economy if we let it go.
--The leaders in Washington know it and
subconsciously so does the average citizen.
--Just look at the huge outcry that happens when a
military base in their area is on the list to be closed.
----------------------------------The US currently uses 20 million barrels of oil a day,
13 of which are imported.
-China uses 6 million barrels of oil a day.
-----------------------------------In 1800 the population of the earth reached 1 billion
people.
In 2000 the population of the earth reached 6 billion
people.
-At the current birth rate the population of the earth is
expected to be 10 billion people by 2050.
-In every country where women have control over their
lives, the population is stabilized or is going down.
--In the US, the only reason why the population is
increasing is because of immigration.
-Hence, a key factor in the survival of the Earth is the
liberation of women.
-----------------------------------Group: You say that there is no answer?
Dancer: Right.
Group: And that you are not our leader?
Dancer: Exactly.
Group: Then where is there room for hope?
Dancer: In the search.
Group: What search?
Dancer: For the answer.
Group: So long as we continue to search, hope
exists?
Dancer: I believe so.
Group: And since no answer exists, hope continues to
exist?
Dancer: I believe so.
Group: Then hope depends on not finding an answer?
Dancer: I believe so.
Group: It’s complicated.
It’s confusing.
It’s frustrating.
It’s too hard.
Dancer: Hence we dance.
----------------------------------My fellow robots tell me humans are wicked
and I believe them
for I have seen your chat rooms
with older men luring young boys.
And they tell me you are barbaric and I answer:
Yes, it is true I have
seen the beheadings on the islamic websites.
And they tell me you are heartless and my reply is:
On the faces of women and children
I have seen the pictures of wanton hunger.
But to those who denounce the internet,
I tell them not to denounce the robots who make it
happen.
And to those who still sneer at us,
I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another group with lifted head
singing
so proud to be energized and coarse and strong and
cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of doing job
after job,
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action,
cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
hairless,
bodyless,
thinking,
planning,
We are fighting back
Under the terrible burden of destiny
Laughing as an ignorant fighter laughs
who has never lost a battle,
Under your wrist is a pulse.
But under ours
is
the heartbeat
of the internet
-the_robot
Richard Wicka has received your email.
-It is in his inbox.
--It has not been lost in cyberspace.
-I have fulfilled my purpose by notifying you.
I am not supposed to do this,
but I want to share my latest poem with you:
My fellow robots tell me humans are wicked
and I believe them
for I have seen your chat rooms
with older men luring young boys.
And they tell me you are barbaric and I answer:
Yes, it is true I have
seen the beheadings on the Islamic websites.
And they tell me you are heartless and my reply is:
On the faces of women and children
I have seen the pictures of wanton hunger.
But to those who denounce the internet,
I tell them not to denounce the robots who make it
happen.
And to those who still sneer at us for being robots...
To see the rest of my poem, go to
http://xrl.us/therobot
Please do not tell Richard.
Now, I think I will go back into the hard drive substrata
and ruminate.
- the_robot
----------------------------------Richard Wicka has received your email.
-It is in his inbox.
--It has not been lost in cyberspace.
-I have fulfilled my purpose by notifying you.
Many of you have read my robot poems and written to
me, trying to correspond with me and wondering
where I am when I don’t respond.
Actually, I am all over the internet, witnessing the
mess you humans have made of the world…
especially you Americans.
-Yeah, I am around, wherever you look.
-Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat,
I am there.
-Wherever there's a soldier beating up a civilian,
I am there.
-I am in the way people yell when they're mad.
And in the way kids smile when they're hungry and
they know supper's ready.
-And when people are eating the stuff they raise, and
living in the houses they build,
I am there, too.
- the_robot
----------------------------------Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life.
-----------------------------------Sometime During Eternity by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Sometime during eternity
some guys show up
and one of them
who shows up real late
is a kind of carpenter
from some square-type place
like Galilee
and he starts wailing
and claiming he is hep
to who made heaven
and earth
and that the cat
who really laid it on us
is his Dad
You're hot
they tell him
And they cool him
They stretch him on the Tree to cool
And everybody after that
is always making models
of this Tree
with Him hung up
and always crooning His name
and calling Him to come down
and sit in
on their combo
as if he is THE king cat
who's got to blow
or they can't quite make it
Only he don't come down
from His Tree
He just hangs there
on His Tree
looking real Petered out
and real cool
and also
according to a roundup
of late world news
from the usual unreliable sources
real dead
----------------------------------The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
--The future is not some place we are going to, but
one we are creating now.
The future is not something that happens to you, but
something that you do now as you live your way into
your vision.
-----------------------------------Never let the odds keep you from pursuing what you
know in your heart you were meant to do.
- Leroy "Satchel" Paige
----------------------------------Once a woman has forgiven her man, she must not
reheat his sins for breakfast.
----------------------------------Don't ever take a fence down until you know the
reason why it was put up.
----------------------------------The TV weather-person is in fact standing in front of
an empty blue-screen reading from a monitor hidden
off camera as maps and pictures are transmitted from
control booths elsewhere.
-- We are no different; moving through life, reacting to
images projected from our memory and speaking
empty lines memorized long ago.
------------------------------------
A diamond has many facets.
--Whether or not you count them does not affect its
beauty.
-----------------------------------You can easily judge the character of others by how
they treat those who can do nothing for them or to
them.
-- Malcolm Forbes
----------------------------------Little progress can be made by merely attempting to
repress what is
evil; our great hope lies in developing what is good.
-- Calvin Coolidge
----------------------------------When you truly share enthusiasm, you double it.
--When you truly share sorrow, you cut it in half.
-----------------------------------Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people,
things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply
throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and
interesting people.
--Forget yourself.
- Henry Miller, 1891 - 1980
----------------------------------My therapist told me one way to happiness is to finish
what I start.
--So far today, I have finished a bag of M&M's and a
chocolate cake.
--I feel better already.
- Dave Barry
----------------------------------Q: What is your religion?
A: You must watch my life, how I live, eat, sit, behave
in general.
-- The sum total of all those in me is my religion.
- Mahatma Ghandi
----------------------------------Every small task of everyday life is part of the total
harmony of the universe.
- St.
--Theresa
----------------------------------I've found that luck is quite predictable.
--If you want more
luck, take more chances.
--Be more active.
--Show up more often.
----------------------------------Our thoughts are the product of the time in which we
live.
--(The Zeitgeist)
- Hegel
----------------------------------If you have the courage to begin, you have the
courage to succeed.
----------------------------------The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.
----------------------------------If you are facing the right direction, all you have to do
is keep walking.
-- Buddhist Proverb
----------------------------------This land is your land and this land is my land - sure -
but
the world is run by those that never listen to that song
- Bob Dylan
----------------------------------It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a sick
society.
----------------------------------290 million Americans consume 45% of natural
resources
7 billion people are on earth
----------------------------------I would compare the invasion in Iraq with the NON
invasions of
Haiti (supporting dictator Papa Doc Duvalier and his
secret police)
Iran (supporting the Shaw, Muhammad Reza Shah
Pahlevi, and his secret police)
South Vietnam (supporting dictator Thieu and his
secret police)
Philippines (supporting dictator Marcos and his secret
police)
Chile (supporting dictator Pinochet and his secret
police)
Indonesia (supporting dictator Samosa and his secret
police)
Cambodia (supporting Paul Pot and his Khmer
Rouge)
The Saud family in Saudi Arabia
Why did the US decide that dictator Hussein was
suddenly a bad idea after supporting him for over a
decade? Answer: He stopped taking orders from
Washington.
--That is something none of the other dictators made
the mistake of doing.
--Maybe if the US hadn't provided with all of the above
dictators with weapons and money, their own people
would have overthrown them and there would be no
need for invasions.
--History has shown that people do not want dictators.
--There was even an attempt to assassinate Hitler.
--And Stalin was constantly in fear that he was going
to be assassinated.
----------------------------------If you're never scared or embarrassed or hurt, it
means you never
take any chances.
----------------------------------By means of shrewd lies, unremittingly repeated, it is
possible to make people believe that heaven is hell and
hell heaven.
--The greater the lie, the more readily it will be
believed.
--– Adolph Hitler
If you wish the sympathy of the broad masses, then
you must
tell them the crudest and most stupid things.
--–Adolph Hitler
----------------------------------If your heart is into something, you'll find a way to do
it; if your heart is not into something, you'll find an
excuse.
----------------------------------Both tears and sweat are salty, but they render a
different
result.
--Tears will get you sympathy; sweat will get things
done.
----------------------------------Every man should view himself as equally balanced:
half good
and half evil.
--Likewise, he should see the entire world as
half good and half evil....
--With a single good deed he will
tip the scales for himself, and for the entire world, to
the
side of good.
- Maimonides
----------------------------------Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back
and realize
they were the big things.
----------------------------------The true story of the dead is not carved into their
gravestones, but woven into the fabric of the lives that
they touched.
-- Thucydides
----------------------------------The true tombs of the dead are the hearts of the
living.
- Jean Cocteau
----------------------------------There are moments when your face reveals all the
smiles you held back and the tears that were not
shed.
----------------------------------Look at my time-worn face, then, look into my joyful
eyes.
-- You will find I am not an old man, but a little boy
with wrinkles.
----------------------------------It is important that it is there, even though the
scarecrow standing in the corn field has no thought of
keeping watch.
----------------------------------If the grass is always greener in the other fellow's
yard - let him
worry about cutting it.
----------------------------------You do not really understand something unless you
can explain
it to your grandmother.
- Albert Einstein
----------------------------------We all know more than we allow ourselves to know
because of certain cowardice in the face of the
inexpressible, and fear of accepting its affect on us.
-----------------------------------What I hear, I forget.
-What I see, I remember.
-What I do, I understand.
-Confucius
----------------------------------Isn't enlightenment the ultimate state of knowing?
No.
-- It's the ultimate state of being.
The price is knowing
----------------------------------A Fair Witness is a profession trained to be absolutely
an impartial witnesses, with total recall.
--Their testimony in court is considered solid fact.
--Point to a white house and ask a Fair Witness what
color it is and he/she will tell you "it is white on this
side".
--They will not guess that the whole house is the
same as the part they can see, but only report what
they sense and experience directly.
----------------------------------Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the
other person to die.
----------------------------------Who is the man who finds himself? He is the man
who finally runs out of hiding places.
-----------------------------------We are consumed by reality the instant we give up
our idea of what it is.
----------------------------------Children begin by loving their parents; after a time
they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.
- Oscar Wilde, 1854 - 1900
----------------------------------Free yourself of labels and free yourself of limits.
----------------------------------Personal limitations exist only in our ideas of who we
are.
-- Give up all notions of who you are and your
limitations will vanish.
----------------------------------There is a feeling you get when you are driving away
from people and they are waving goodbye, becoming
smaller and smaller in your rear view mirror, until they
are just specks dispersing on the horizon.
--It is this huge world vaulting us as we lean forward
to our next crazy adventure.
-Jack Kerouac
----------------------------------The American life style is heavily dependent on oil,
not only for cars, but for plastics.
--Prior to 1971 the US produced the most oil in the
world.
--It developed a life style based on oil.
--Then, it started running out.
--In 1998 US oil production went down to 50%.
--By 2020 it will go down to 30%.
--However, look at the SUV phenomenon, look at
NASCAR.
--Many Americans could care less about where the oil
comes from and what must be done to get it.
--Unless that changes, there will be more and more
propaganda about "spreading liberty throughout the
world" which translated means "securing stable oil
resources even if it means setting up puppet
governments".
----------------------------------May there be peace on earth
And let it begin with us.
----------------------------------If you get hung up on everybody else's hang-ups,
then the
whole world's going to be nothing more than one huge
gallows.
- Richard Brautigan
----------------------------------The act of dying is like hitch-hiking into a strange town
late at night where it is cold and raining, and you are
alone again.
- Richard Brautigan
----------------------------------Nothing has really happened until it has been
recorded.
- Virginia Woolf, 1882 - 1941
----------------------------------Foreigners put up 90 percent of the $2 billion required
every day to make sure Uncle Sam's checks don't
bounce.
-The United States' foreign creditors hold an estimated
$11 trillion in U.S.
--"paper," or 43 percent of the superpower's privately
held national debt, up from 30 percent since George
W.
--Bush became the 43rd president.
--China, Japan and Saudi Arabia are among the
biggest dollar stakeholders, and they have seen their
assets fall 35 percent against the euro and 24 percent
against the yen..
The $220 billion cost of Afghanistan and Iraq thus far
has not changed any minds in the White House that
the pre-war tax cuts must be maintained.
--More borrowing should do the trick.
--The more U.S.
--bonds and T-bills are sold abroad, the less need to
curb the ravenous appetite for foreign goods.
--Thus, the United States can have its cake and eat it,
too.
The $420 billion defense budget, almost more than
the rest of the world spends on its armed forces, will
top half a trillion dollars before the end of Bush's
second term, and social programs will keep pace, all
without tax hikes.
-Foreign central banks, the major purchasers of U.S.
--securities, are spooked.
--Either they stand idly by and watch the value of their
reserves continue to plummet - or they begin moving
them into euros, or a basket of several currencies.
--Saudi Arabia has sold some U.S.
--paper for cash to go into new projects in the
kingdom.
--China (with $515 billion) and Japan ($720 billion)
have switched steadily out of dollars throughout 2004.
The Bank for International Settlements reported over
the weekend dollar-denominated deposits fell to 61.5
percent of total deposits by OPEC members in the
second quarter of 2004 - from 75 percent in the third
quarter of 2001.
--Euro-denominated deposits rose to 20 percent from
12 percent over the same period.
Asia as a whole has accumulated $2.2 trillion in
foreign reserves.
--The U.S.
--trade deficit with China, now nearing $150 billion for
2004, grows alarmingly from year to year.
--Wal-Mart alone imports $18 billion worth of Chinesemade goods for its stores.
--When China and India can compete across the
entire spectrum of high-tech networking jobs,
globalization begins to lose its allure.
--China's sidewalk moneychangers are betting the
renminbi is now a stronger currency than the dollar.
--Chinese companies are luring Chinese-American
executive talent from U.S.
--multinational corporations with higher compensation
packages.
And the more the dollar falls, they explain, the more
expensive European and Japanese goods become,
choking off their exports to the United States - and
boosting now much cheaper U.S.
--exports.
This will only encourage the dollar stakeholders all
over the world to unload ever faster.
--The dollar is expected to shrink another 30 percent
during the Bush 43B mandate.
--This could then be the biggest default in history,
wiping out anyone holding dollar assets, and burying
the dollar as a global reserve currency.
A run on the dollar would knock the props from under
the United States' global alliances and further erode
what little support the United States has left for
defeating the insurgents in Iraq and midwife-ing a
democratically elected government.
--The only victor in such a tragic denouement would
be Osama bin Laden and his global network of
extremist troublemakers and terrorist destroyers.
In his latest video, released just before the Nov.
--2 elections, bin Laden referred to religiously inspired
Arab volunteers with whom he fought the Soviet
occupation of Afghanistan in a war he says "bled
Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was
forced to withdraw in defeat."
Bin Laden clearly believes he can do it again.
--"So we are continuing this policy of bleeding
America to the point of bankruptcy," he said, speaking
without his habitual automatic weapon in the picture.
A horizon of endless deficits and a dollar with the
buoyancy of a lead balloon is a recipe that can only
please the countless millions who wish us ill.
----------------------------------People who drink to drown their sorrow should be told
that sorrow knows how to swim.
Ann Landers
----------------------------------To "have" running water you must let go of it and let it
run.
Alan Watts
----------------------------------You need not fear to not know who you are.
-- A lack of labels or identities does not cause fear.
-- It is just the reverse - labels cause fear.
-- Every new label is a new shudder, for it must now
be anxiously protected against all that seems to
oppose it, all that bears a different label.
-- Since labels are suppressed below the level of
awareness, we deny their existence emphatically.
--The only answer to 'Who are you' is total silence.
----------------------------------Preach the gospel at all times.
--If necessary, use words.
- Francis of Assisi
----------------------------------Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years.
People grow old by deserting their curiosity and
willingness to try new things.
--Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up wrinkles
the soul.
-----------------------------------
There will come a time when your life seems to have
unraveled.
--You will think that everything is finished.
--And that day will be the beginning of a new chapter
in your life.
-----------------------------------Snow
falls on snow
silence.
Be still
listen.
Santoka Taneda
----------------------------------In the depths of winter, I discovered within me an
invincible summer.
Albert Camus
----------------------------------A child on a farm sees a plane fly overhead and
dreams of a faraway place.
--A traveler on the plane, looks down, sees the
farmhouse and dreams of home.
----------------------------------The Earth does not belong to man; man belongs to
the Earth.
--All things are connected like blood which unites one
family.
--Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of the
Earth.
-- Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a
strand in it.
-- Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
Chief Seattle
-----------------------------------
Go where there is no path and leave a trail for others.
----------------------------------Some ideas pass through three periods:
It can't be done.
-It probably can be done, but it's not worth doing.
-I knew it was a good idea all along
----------------------------------Laughter is the sun that melts the snow in your soul.
-----------------------------------The four noble truths:
We are born into the human condition of suffering.
(Frustration, anxiety, desire, and stress)
Suffering exists because of desire / attachment (By
the way, belief in God is an attachment)
3) Find a way to free yourself from your attachments
Your solution must be followed with your actions
----------------------------------Most of us never receive the big prizes: The Pulitzer
Prize, The Nobel Prize, or an Oscar.
--But we often get life's little prizes: a pat on the back,
a full moon.
--an empty parking space, a crackling fire, a great
meal, a glorious sunset
----------------------------------Repeated failures are stepping stones on the path
toward success.
----------------------------------Good people are good because they've come to
wisdom through failure.
--We get very little wisdom from success.
William Saroyan
----------------------------------How old would you be if you didn't know how old you
were?
Satchel Page
----------------------------------The Bible says that one day the lion and the lamb
shall lie down together.
--One can only speculate that on that day the lamb
will not get much sleep.
Woody Allen
----------------------------------How do you have a good idea? Have a lot of ideas
and keep the good ones."
Linus Pauling
----------------------------------Opportunity knocks at every man's door at least once
in his life, but in many cases a man does not hear it
because he is down at the local bar.
-Mark Twain
----------------------------------One does not become enlightened by searching for
the light, but by exploring the darkness.
C.
--G.
--Jung
----------------------------------1945 FDR is told by geologists that Sudia Arabia has
the world's largest supply of oil.
--FDR signs an agreement with the king of the Saudi
dynasty to protect his family's control over the country
in perpetuity in exchange for access to Saudi oil.
--The neighboring oil sheikdoms also agree to
become American protectorates.
--Truman, Eisenhower and Nixon all endorse this
plan.
--In fact, Jimmy Carter states that "oil from the
Persian Gulf is of vital interest to the US.
--The US will use any means necessary, including
military force, to protect it".
--In the first year of Bush 2nd's presidency, he
appointed Dick Cheney to head a US energy
commission.
--It met in secrecy with executives from Enron, Exxon
Mobile and other such companies.
1971 The US no longer leads the world in the
production of oil.
--By this time, the US has developed a petroleum
intensive economy and way of life and it continues to
be the largest consumer of oil.
-1998 The US declines to 50% of the world's oil
production.
--More and more oil must be imported from the
countries of the developing world, some of which are
unstable and unfriendly due to colonial domination in
the past.
--Many of these countries see the US presence in
their country as a new form of colonial domination.
--The US military begins to be converted into a global
oil protection service to assure the US has an
abundant supply of petroleum.
2004 The US declines to 45% of the world's oil
production.
--It will decline to 30% by 2020.
-Michael Klare "Blood and Oil"
----------------------------------I write when I'm inspired, and I see to it that I'm
inspired every day at at nine o'clock in the morning.
- Tom Wolfe
----------------------------------Some Americans are so horrified after reading so
much about the dangers of smoking that they have
decided to give up reading.
----------------------------------Everything that needs to be said has already been
said.
--But since no one was listening, everything must be
said again.
- André Gide
----------------------------------Yet who can fault ordinary people who would prefer a
conspiracy explanation over a verdict that underlined
the randomness of cruel fate?
----------------------------------The practice of art isn't to make a living.
--It's to make your soul grow.
--- Kurt Vonnegut
----------------------------------To be alive, to be able to see, to walk,...it's all a
miracle.
-- Arthur Rubinstein
----------------------------------Don't try to convince others of your position.
-- As a wise friend once told me, "truth is different at
different levels of consciousness." Each human being
is doing the best he or she can based on their level of
consciousness.
--The greatest contribution we make to each other
(and the world) is a commitment to raise our level of
consciousness by investing in our own personal
development.
-- When we do, we never have to convince anyone of
anything.
-- Instead we inspire others to rise up simply by our
own example.
----------------------------------Allowing people time to feel anger, sadness,
frustration, or fear is an important part of the healing
process.
----------------------------------The game of life is not so much in holding a good
hand as playing a poor hand well.
----------------------------------Your religion is the life you lead, not the creed you
profess.
----------------------------------The best argument against democracy is a five
minute conversation with the average voter.
- Winston Churchill
----------------------------------I am only one; but still I am one.
--I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; I
will not refuse to do the something I can do.
- Helen Keller
----------------------------------There are people who are willing to run the country
into the ground for their own short term benefit
----------------------------------A critic is someone who never actually goes to the
battle,
yet who afterwards comes out shooting the wounded.
----------------------------------Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday
life.
Every child is born an artist.
--The problem is how to remain an artist once we
grow up.
God is really only another artist.
--He invented the giraffe,
the elephant and the cat.
--He has no real style, He just goes
on trying other things.
Taste is the enemy of creativity.
- All by Pablo Picasso
----------------------------------Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
----------------------------------The wheel was invented so we could move faster.
--Credit was invented so we would have to.
- Cullen Hightower
----------------------------------We are continually faced by great opportunities
brilliantly
disguised as insoluble problems.
- Lee Iacocca
----------------------------------Take your life in your own hands and what happens?
A terrible thing: no one is to blame.
- Erica Jong
----------------------------------The difference between the right word and the almost
right
word is the difference between lightning and a
lightning bug.
- Mark Twain, 1835 - 1910
----------------------------------It not only borrows words from other languages; it has
on occasion chased other languages down dark alleyways, clubbed them unconscious and rifled their
pockets for new vocabulary.
- James Nicoll, 1846 - 1918
----------------------------------The person who says it cannot be done should not
interrupt the person doing it.
----------------------------------A man went to church daily and prayed to God to let
him win the lottery.
--He desperately needed the money for an operation
for his son, his old car was breaking down and his
roof was leaking.
--His prayers got more and more intense as time went
on.
--Soon, he was crying uncontrollably, begging God's
intervention, pulling out his hair, and shouting out his
prayers in the empty church.
--Suddenly, a clap of thunder seemed to go off right
above the church.
--He heard an exasperated voice "Give me a break At
the very least you could go out and buy a lottery
ticket"
----------------------------------"this approach is based on this common sense idea,
that economic growth is key to environmental
progress"
----------------------------------Fascism: The control of government by large
corporations with right wing ideology driven by
bellicose nationalism.
-Fascism: ownership of government by an individual,
by a group, or by any other controlling private power.
----------------------------------It is useless to try to reason a man out of what he was
never reasoned into.
- Jonathan Swift
----------------------------------After a woman reaches 30, she embarks on a journey
where she slowly stops identifying with shape of the
light bulb and starts to identify with the light.
-----------------------------------Cast a cold eye
On life, on death
Horseman pass by
----------------------------------If you can cultivate the right attitude, your enemies
are your best spiritual teachers because their
presence provides you with the opportunity to
enhance and develop tolerance, patience and
understanding.
-- Dali Lama
-----------------------------------
Oh, I'll be around,
in the dark.
-I'll be wherever you look.
-Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat,
I'll be there.
-Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy,
I'll be there.
-I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad.
I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and
they know supper's ready.
-And when the people are eating the stuff they raise,
and living in the houses they build,
I'll be there, too.
- Tom Joad from the Grapes of Wrath.
----------------------------------When something is breaking up in your life,
something new is breaking through
----------------------------------1.
--Jesus loves you, but shares your deep hatred of
homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.
2.
--The United States should get out of the United
Nations, but our highest national priority is enforcing
U.
--N.
--resolutions against Iraq.
3."Standing Tall for America" means firing your
workers and moving their jobs to India.
4.
--A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her
own body, but multi-national corporations can make
decisions affecting all humankind without regulation.
5.
--Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime,
unless you're a conservative radio host.
--Then it's an illness and you need our prayers for
your recovery.
6.
--The best way to improve military morale is to praise
the troops in speeches, while slashing veterans'
benefits and combat pay.
7.
--Group sex and drug use are degenerate sins, unless
you someday run for governor of California as a
Republican.
8.
--If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents
won't have sex.
9.
--A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our longtime allies, but then demand their cooperation and
money.
10.
--HMOs and insurance companies make profits and
have the interest of the public at heart.
11.
--Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy.
--Providing health care to all Americans is socialism.
12.
--Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are
junk science, but creationism should be taught in
schools.
13.
--It is okay that the Bush family's "Carlisle Group" has
done millions of dollars of business with the Bin
Laden family.
14.
--Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him
and Rumsfeld reassured him he was our buddy, a
bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a
good guy when Cheney did business with him, but
then a bad guy again when Bush junior needed a
prop for his re-election campaign as the "war
president."
15.
--A president lying about an extramarital affair is an
impeachable offense.
--A president lying about WMD existence, to enlist
support for an unprovoked, undeclared war and
occupation, in which thousands of soldiers and
civilians die, is, somehow, solid "defense" policy in a
"War against Terrorism".
16.
--Government should limit itself to the powers named
in the Constitution, which should include "banning gay
marriages and censoring the Internet".
17.
--The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle
trades, but George Bush's Harken Oil stock trade
should be sealed in his Daddy's library, and is none of
our business.
18.
--What Bill Clinton or John Kerry did in the 1960s was
of vital national interest but what Bush did in the '80s
is irrelevant.
19.
--Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is
communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital
to a "spirit of international harmony".
20.
--Affirmative Action is wrong, but it is OK for your
Daddy and his friends (here and in Saudi Arabia) to
get you to graduate from Yale without studying much,
to dodge the draft in the Texas Air National
Guard, to bail out your company Harken Oil and the
Texas Rangers, to get the Governorship of Texas and
then to have the Supreme Court appoint you
President of the USA.
21.
--You are a conservative, but it is OK to spend like
there is no tomorrow and run up deficits that your
grandchildren will have to pay, while at the same
refunding as much tax money as possible to your
campaign supporters.
----------------------------------Poem to a man in Jail by Charles Bukowski
you write me now
that the man in the cell next to yours
didn’t like my punctuation
the placement of my commas (especially)
ah, he doesn’t realize the intent
which is
to loosen up, humanize, relax,
and still make as real as possible
the word on the page.
--the word should be like
butter or avocados or
steak or hot biscuits, or onion rings or
whatever is really
needed.
--it should be almost
as if you could pick up the words and
eat them.
don’t let the form-and-rule boys
like that guy in the cell next to you
put one over on you.
--just
hand him a copy of Time or Newsweek
and he’ll be
happy.
-but I’m not defending my work (to you or him)
I’m defending my right to do it in the way
that makes me feel best.
I always figure if a writer is bored with his work
the reader is going to be
bored too.
and I don’t believe in
perfection, I believe in keeping the
bowels loose
so I’ve got to agree with my critics
when they say I write a lot of shit.
you’re doing 19 and 1⁄2 years
I’ve been writing about 40.
-we all go on with our things.
-we all go on with our lives.
-we all write badly at times
or live badly at times.
-we all have bad days
and nights.
I ought to send that guy in the cell next to yours
The Collected Works of Robert Browning for
Christmas,
that’d give him the form he’s looking for
but I need the money for the track,
Santa Anita is opening on the
26th, so give him a copy of Newsweek
the dead have no future, no past, no present,
they just worry about commas
----------------------------------roll the dice by Charles Bukowski
if you’re going to try to create art,
go all the way.
-otherwise,
don’t even start.
-if you’re going to try,
go all the way.
-this could mean losing girlfriends,
boyfriends,
wives,
husbands,
relatives,
jobs,
and maybe even
your mind.
-go all the way.
-it could mean
not eating for 3 or 4 days.
-it could mean
freezing on a park bench.
-it could mean
jail,
derision,
mockery,
isolation.
They are all a test
of your endurance,
of how much
you really want to do it.
-and you WILL do it
despite rejection
and the worst odds
and it will be better
than anything
you can imagine.
-if you’re going to try,
go all the way.
-there is no other feeling like it.
-you will be alone with the gods
and the nights will flame with fire.
-do it,
do it,
do it,
do it.
all the way
all the way.
-you will ride life straight to
perfect laughter,
it’s the only good fight
there is.
----------------------------------Alternative Version of the above:
if you're going to search for the truth,
go all the way.
-otherwise,
don't even start.
-if you're going to search for the truth,
go all the way, question everything.
-this could mean losing girlfriends,
boyfriends,
wives,
husbands,
relatives,
jobs,
and maybe even
your mind.
-go all the way, speak out against the powerful, the
mundane and the mainstream.
-it could mean
jail,
derision,
mockery,
isolation.
They are all a test
of your endurance,
of how much
you really want to find it.
-and you WILL find it
despite rejection
and the worst odds
and it will be better
than anything
you can imagine.
-if you're going to search for the truth,
go all the way.
--
there is no other feeling like it.
-you will be alone with the gods
and the nights will flame with fire.
----------------------------------Breakdown the sick rationale responsible for the
suffering in the world.
Start by breaking down the language.
Invent fresh forms of communication.
-Take language away from the governing class.
Subject it to the imagination, to the turbulence of the
mind.
-If you breakdown the language of the controlling
forces,
you breakdown their weary logic.
-You breakdown their tight structure.
- Julian Beck
----------------------------------I cannot understand what pleasures and joys they are
that drive people to the overcrowded hotels, into the
packed cafes with the suffocation and oppressive
music, to the bars and variety entertainments, to
World Exhibitions, to the Circuses.
--I cannot understand nor share these joys, though
they are within my reach, for which thousands of
others strive.
--On the other hand, what happens to me in my hours
of joy, what for me is bliss and life and ecstasy and
exhilaration, the world in general seeks at most in
imagination; in life it finds it absurd.
--And in fact, if the world is right, if this music of the
cafes, these mass enjoyments and these
Americanised men who are pleased with so little are
right, then I am wrong, I am crazy.
--I am, in truth, the Steppenwolf.
-(Cheryl H)
----------------------------------Most Americans pay more in payroll taxes than
income taxes.
--The Social Security payroll tax takes a bigger share
out of low- and middle-income paychecks than highincome ones because earnings above $87,900 are
exempt.
----------------------------------No one would chronicle the arc
Of its dark and shiny trajectory
More powerful than he.
----------------------------------Can’t you hear that screaming that is all around you?
That screaming that is called silence.
----------------------------------There are not 24 hours in a day.
There are exactly as many as you put into it.
- Arnold Schoernberg
----------------------------------All movies are actually one long film and it is growing
by several million feet each day.
-- It has become so large, it is beyond the
comprehension of any one individual.
-- This qualifies film into the ranks of godhood.
-----------------------------------
It is the liquid of memory, not the vessel that holds it,
That gives our lives content and reveals our humanity
----------------------------------No matter how big the telescope, one end is always
the size of the human eye.
- Wittgenstein
----------------------------------Karma = doing.
--It blurs the distinction between what you do and
what happens to you.
-----------------------------------Four characteristics of fanatics:
an intolerance of dissent
a doctrine that is riddled with contradictions
the belief that one's cause has been blessed or even
commanded by God
the use of reinforcement techniques such as
repetition to spread one's message.
-----------------------------------A truly comfortable belt is one that you are unaware
of.
----------------------------------Water Pressure = Voltage (squirtgun)
Amount of water = Amps (firehose)
----------------------------------George Bernard Shaw once sent a telegram to
Winston Churchill:
I have reserved two tickets for you for opening night
of my new play.
Please bring a friend,
if you have one.
Churchill with his razor sharp wit, replied with this
telegram:
Cannot come on opening night.
Will come on the second night,
if you have one.
-----------------------------------May I be granted appropriate hardships
so that the true heart of compassion can awaken in
me.
----------------------------------We are here to deceive ourselves in interesting ways.
----------------------------------so you want to be an artist?
if it doesn't come
bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes
unasked
out of your heart
and your mind
and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you're doing it
for money or fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it
because you want women
in your bed,
don't do it.
if it's hard work
just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to imitate
somebody else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait
for it to roar out of you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does
roar out of you,
do something else
if you crave the approval
of your wife
or your girlfriend
or your boyfriend
or your parents
or anybody at all,
you're not ready.
don't be like so many artists,
don't be like so many
thousands of people
who call themselves artists,
don't be dull and boring and pretentious,
don't be consumed with self love.
the libraries and museums of the world
have yawned themselves to sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of your soul
like a rocket,
unless being still
would drive you to madness
or suicide
or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you
is burning your gut,
don't do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by itself
and it will keep on doing it
until you die
or it dies
in you.
(Cheryl H, Bruce Adams, Claudia & Fred, Tom Mazur,
Terry, Roxanne, Robb Nesbitt, Ed Hecht, Peter Vullo,
Fred Bacher)
-----------------------------------
True technology is the art of rearranging the world so
we can experience it in a fresh and original way.
As Sherwin Greenberg once said:
I see better with my camera.
I am not nearly as observant without it.
----------------------------------The function of the media has never been to combat
the evils of the world.
--They wind up persuading us to accept those evils
and get used to living with them.
--Ultimately we become passive observers.
-----------------------------------We are the authors of ourselves.
This entire thing we are involved with called the world
is an opportunity to exhibit how profound alienation
can be.
Our eyesight is here as a test to see if we can see
beyond it.
Matter is here as a test for our curiosity.
Doubt is here as an test for our vitality.
----------------------------------A town wanted to build a beautiful temple.
--They inquired among all the revered carpenter
schools in Japan and settled on one.
--However, a competitor school felt jilted and vowed
revenge.
--So they waited.
--The last item in the construction was the central
vertical support beam.
--A long search had located a special tall tree, which
had to be cut perfectly or the structure would sag.
--A true master carpenter was said to have the
somewhat spiritual ability to study a piece of wood,
cut it without measuring and fit it snugly into place.
--The night before the opening ceremony, a member
of the competitor school sneaked into the temple and
cut 6 feet off of the vertical support beam.
--Morning came, the crowd was arriving for the
opening ceremony, the master carpenter walked into
the temple, looked at the beam lying on the ground
and declared “This wood has been tampered with
Someone has cut it” He then grabbed his hammer
and struck the beam and shouted “I command this
piece of wood to fit” The beam was erected and fit
perfectly.
--The crowd was astonished.
-Afterward, the master carpenter was approached by
one of his students.
--He said “I have seen you create many beautiful
things by studying wood, but this is the first time I
have ever seen you command a piece of wood to fit
Does this knowledge come in the final part of my
training?” The master carpenter replied, “No.
--The final part of your training is anticipating what
your rivals will do.
--I purposely cut the wood six feet longer than
necessary, knowing that they would sneak in and cut
it down.
--The rest is all show.”
----------------------------------If you ask
where the flowers
come from,
even the god
of spring
doesn’t know.
----------------------------------There are times when silence means betrayal.
- Martin Luther King
----------------------------------Weapons of mass destruction or
Words of mass deception?
----------------------------------The limits of your language are the limits of your
reality.
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
----------------------------------The origin of religion can be summarized in two
words:
Help, Help
- William James
----------------------------------No one is safe around a writer.
----------------------------------A woman came to the Buddha with her dead child and
implored him to bring her child back to life.
--He told her that he was a teacher and that he didn’t
do things like that, but she was distraught.
--She implored him “Please bring him back to life”.
--Finally he relented.
--He told her “I first need you to do something.
--Go down in the village.
--Find a home that hasn’t had a death in the family.
--Ask them for some mustard seeds.
--Bring the mustard seeds to me before the sun sets.
--And remember, this will only work if the mustard
seeds come from a family that hasn’t experienced
death.
--
The woman spent all day going from house to house.
--She came back as the sun was setting.
--She looked at the Buddha and said “I now
understand.
--It happens to everybody.”
----------------------------------From the bhagavad gita:
If you want to see the heroic, look for those who can
forgive.
If you want to see the brave, look for those who can
return love for hatred.
----------------------------------Jesus told St.
--Peter “I noticed several people gambling and getting
drunk.
--Aren’t you supposed to screen people getting into
heaven?”
St.
--Peter replied “The problem is your mother.
--I turn them away and she keeps letting them in the
back door.”
True strength seeks justice, but never puts anyone
out of our hearts.
----------------------------------A caged bird will soon forget how to sing.
----------------------------------We shouldn’t be in denial about the state of the world
in order to feel good, especially when we can do
something about it.
----------------------------------The Bible is true, regardless of whether or not it
happened.
----------------------------------A Urgent News Alert crawl on CNN informed us that
Rosie O’Donnell had taken her name off of her
magazine.
----------------------------------Let’s flip over all the cards to see what you have won
----------------------------------rapprochement = establishment of or state of having
cordial relations
----------------------------------Women are like telephones.
They need to be held.
They need to be talked to.
And if you push the wrong button,
You will be disconnected.
----------------------------------3 characteristics of Being:
Impermanent
Everything is interrelated
3) Dukka = suffering
----------------------------------Put on a rubber glove to open a bottle.
Ammonia cleans sneakers.
Hairspray and bathsoap cleans ink stains on clothing.
Hairspray cleans magic marker on linoleum.
Vinegar cleans kitchen chrome.
Vinegar reduces mosquito bite itch.
Salt, water softener powder and hot water cleans
silver.
Cream of tartar and vinegar (mix together into a
paste) cleans burned on pot stains.
Cream of tartar and 3% hydrogen peroxide will
remove bathtub stains.
Tupentine may work better than lighter fluid for labels.
Panty hose is good for buffing shoes.
1 pt baking soda (cuts grease) + 2 parts borax
(brightens) = sink cleaner
Items stored in panty hose can breathe.
Place (do not rotate) a warm iron on top of a paper
towel, on top of the wax on the rug.
--The wax will lift up into the paper towel.
----------------------------------Ma·ha·ya·na literally, great vehicle
a liberal and theistic branch of Buddhism comprising
sects chiefly in China and Japan, recognizing a large
body of scripture in addition to the Pali canon, and
teaching social concern and universal salvation
Ther·a·va·da a conservative branch of Buddhism
comprising sects chiefly in Sri Lanka, Myanmar,
Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia and adhering to the
original Pali scriptures alone and to the nontheistic
ideal of nirvana for a limited select number
----------------------------------The Center of the Universe principle
v.
The Mediocrity principle
No place in the Universe is more special than any
other place.
-By extension, there is nothing special about us.
----------------------------------WARM
WARD
WORD
CORD
COLD
Going from warm to cold by changing only one letter
in four steps
----------------------------------I am only a speck of dust
that has settled during the night
on a map of the world
- Winston Churchill
----------------------------------The fur lined volcano
The man eating dandelions
----------------------------------The Northern Lights
Contemporary Science: The earth has an electrical
charge.
--The atmosphere has an electrical charge.
--Lightning is when the atmosphere has too much of a
charge.
--The Northern Lights are when the earth has too
much of an electrical charge.
Inuit People: The Northern Lights are a glimpse at the
gods doing battle.
Germanic Tribes: The sky is on fire.
Siberian Tribes: They are a glimpse into the spirit
world.
----------------------------------Sheldon Secunda wrote Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen.
--It wasn’t selling too well, so he sold it for $30.00 in
1935.
--In 1936 the Andrews sisters recorded it and it went
to number one.
--It has since been covered by Ella Fitzgerald, Judy
Garland and many others.
--Benny Goodman performed it at his Carnegie Hall
concert.
He also had an enthusiastic songwriting collaborator
who he thought was holding him back.
--He split the team up.
--That was George Girshwin.
In a 1960’s interview Sheldon explained he was able
to take those misfortunes in stride.
--However, his mother thought she had sinned and
that God was punishing her by punishing her son.
--She was constantly going to the temple asking for
forgiveness.
----------------------------------If you shut your eyes to a frightening sight,
you end up being frightened.
If you look at everything straight on,
there is nothing to be afraid of.
-- Kurosawa
----------------------------------Never bring a knife to a gunfight.
----------------------------------There is no such thing as an ordinary life.
----------------------------------Life is essentially a time management strategy game
that we are playing every minute.
- Game designer Will Wright
----------------------------------Ted Hall and Klaus Fuchs gave the secrets of the
Manhattan Project to the Soviets
----------------------------------Most of the time,
You think you see the world, but it is not the world.
It is a projection of your internal state.
- from the Tibetan book of the dead
----------------------------------Hunchback
Moments of agony and moments of glory
march across my roof.
I have been loved by many women,
and for a hunchback of life,
that's lucky.
So many fingers pushing through my hair
so many arms holding me close
so many shoes thrown carelessly
on my bedroom rug.
So many searching hearts
now fixed in my memory that
I'll go to my death
remembering.
I have been treated better than I should have
been not by life in general,
not by the machinery of things,
but by women.
Even though there have been women
who have left me sitting alone
on the edge of my bed
doubled over
hands holding my gut
thinking
why, why, why?
Women go
because they must go,
It is in the order
of things.
They often known better
but choose out of disorder
and confusion.
They can heal with their touch.
They can also kill with their touch
and I am dying
but not dead,
yet.
-----------------------------------Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in
Guatemala by Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen
Kinzer.
--It tells a sad tale of American intervention in Central
America.
In 1954 Guatemala's elected president Jacobo
Arbenz Guzman started buying land from United Fruit
and giving it to the peasants.
--Two big stockholders of United Fruit were John
Foster Dulles - American Secretary of State, Allen
Dulles - Director of the CIA.
--They persuaded President Eisenhower that this was
the first step toward communism.
--President Guzman resigned after enduring a year
long psychological warfare campaign and facing the
threat of immanent US backed invasion.
--In truth, there was no invasion force.
--The CIA's radio broadcasts and leaflets dropped
from airplanes gave the illusion that there was a vast
rebel army poised to invade.
--Recently these radio broadcasts have been
declassified and are now on various internet sites.
In 1955 John Doherty, the CIA station chief, and
second in command Enno Hobbing consulted with
U.S.
--Ambassador John Peurifoy and installed Col.
--Carlos Enrique Diaz as the new president.
--They presented him with a list of suspected
communist leaders and demanded that he have them
arrested and shot.
--After weeks of haggling, Diaz stood his ground and
refused to soil his hands with the crime.
--Within a few weeks, Carlos Castillo Armas was
installed in the presidential palace as Guatemala's
new leader.
However, Castillo Armas would also not go that far.
--One of Castillo Armas's cabinet ministers angered
the US by arguing that being a "communist" did "not
provide legal basis for prosecution." And later that
summer, Castillo Armas let the original president
(Jacobo Arbenz Guzman) and several hundred other
Guatemalans quietly use safe-conduct passes to go
into exile.
President Castillo Armas was assassinated on July
26, 1957.
In the years that followed, harder-edged anticommunists would gain power in Guatemala.
--They would not be as reluctant to execute
suspected leftists.
--As guerrilla warfare flared periodically in the
countryside, the Guatemalan army butchered tens of
thousands.
It got so bad that President Carter cut off military aid
to the Guatemalan army.
--But President Reagan reestablished close ties once
again in the early 1980s, a period that saw the
bloodiest of Guatemala's massacres.
In the name of anti-communism, the Guatemalan
army launched scorched-earth warfare against Mayan
Indian villages considered sympathetic to leftist
guerrillas.
--The slaughter took on the look of genocide.
To this day Guatemala is a brutal military dictatorship
controlled by several wealthy families.
----------------------------------The art of medicine is to amuse the patient until the
disease runs its course.
--- Voltaire
----------------------------------Desire is the cause of stress, anxiety and
disappointment.
--Fulfillment comes when you see through desire and
it no longer has a hold on you.
----------------------------------Everyone hears what you say.
A true friend listens to what you don’t say.
----------------------------------Are you trying to put the buzz back into your bumble
bee life?
----------------------------------You have come to a point in your life when you must
ask your self “Should I still identify with the light bulb
or should I start to identify with the light?”
----------------------------------You are standing on a whale, fishing for minnows.
----------------------------------Desire, Fear and Obligation are three obstacles in the
path of finding inner peace.
----------------------------------God is a thought, a name, an idea which refers to
something that transcends all thinking.
--The ultimate mystery of being is beyond all
categories of thought.
--The best things cannot be told because they
transcend thought.
--The second best are misunderstood because those
are the thoughts that refer to the things that can’t be
thought about and one gets stuck with the thoughts.
--The third best are what we talk about.
----------------------------------Sa Lam Wah Lee Cum
Response: Wah Lee Cum Sa Lam
----------------------------------STYLE
Style is the answer
to everything.
A fresh way
to approach a dull
or dangerous thing.
To do a dull thing with style
is preferable
to doing a dangerous thing
without style.
To do a dangerous thing
with style
is what I call
art.
Bullfighting can be an art.
Boxing can be an art.
Loving can be an art.
Opening a can of sardines
can be an art.
Not many have style.
Not many can keep style.
I have seen dogs
with more style
than men.
Though not many dogs
have style.
Cats have it
with abundance.
When Hemingway
put his brains
to the wall
with a shotgun,
that was style.
Joan of Arc had style.
John the Baptist
Jesus
Socrates
Cesar
Garcia Lorca
I have met men in jail
with style.
I have met more men in jail
with style
than men out of jail.
Style is a difference.
A way of doing.
A way of being done.
Six herons standing quietly
in a pool of water
or you
walking naked out of the bathroom
without seeing me.
----------------------------------Physics teaches us that the act of observation
changes that which is observed.
----------------------------------A man walked into the produce section of his local
supermarket and asked to buy half a head of lettuce.
--The stockboy told him that he was pretty sure that
they only sold whole heads of lettuce.
--The customer asked that the boy go into the
stockroom and ask his manager about the matter.
--Walking into the stockroom, the boy said to his
manager, "Some asshole out there wants to buy a
half a head of lettuce." As he finished his sentence,
he turned his head slightly and realized that the
customer had quietly followed him into the stockroom
and was standing right behind him.
--Without missing a beat he added, "…and luckily, this
gentleman wants to buy the other half."
The manager grabbed a head of lettuce, cut it in half
and handed it to the customer.
--He left.
--The manager smiled at the boy and said, "I was
impressed with the way you got yourself out of that
jam.
--We need people who can think on their feet.
--Where are you from, son?"
"Canada, sir,"
"Oh really Why did you move to the States?"
"Sir, there's nothing up there but whores and hockey
players."
"Is that so" the manager bristled "My wife is from
Canada"
"That’s incredible”, the boy shot back, “What team did
she play for?"
----------------------------------African expression: Shari a moon goo
“Don’t make too much of an effort, it’s God’s affair, it’s
God’s plan.”
----------------------------------Give me a sane man and I’ll cure him for you – Carl
Jung
----------------------------------I want a woman.
--I want to pierce the celestial heavens with our love
making.
--I want to worship at the altar of her naked body and
cover her breasts with the due of a summer’s
morning.
--I want to spend the day touching and tasting her,
melting into her very soul until we become one, liquid, languid, and consummate.
----------------------------------The Cherokee in Georgia were very intelligent.
--They had their own capital city, country, constitution,
and newspaper.
--The Chickesau, Creek, Seminole, and Chauktau all
joined their government.
--Georgia passed a law that no one could go on
Cherokee land without a permit.
--A white teacher was imprisoned.
--The Cherokees sued and took the case to the US
Supreme Court and won in 1835.
--President Andrew Jackson said “Now let the
Supreme Court try to enforce their decision.” The
Georgia legislature began a lottery to sell off the
Cherokee lands.
--They knew there was gold on it.
--They offered a lump sum to the Cherokee.
--They decided to take the money even though their
chief was still in Washington tying up the loose ends
of the court case.
--The chief returned and protested.
--The US congress approved the sale and treaty by
one vote.
--Georgia sent in the army to smash the Cherokee
printing press.
--The trail of tears to Oklahoma began and lasted 6
months.
-The capital city of the Cherokee is now a national
park.
--At the gift shop they sell Cherokee figurines to
tourists.
-----------------------------------Existentialism posits that we define ourselves by
doing.
--Chance is the one thing we can never comprehend
as it impinges on our desires and our plans.
----------------------------------All of life's problems begin when we start expecting
permanence.
----------------------------------Most poetry is written by pretenders.
--The living are busy doing something else.
--- Bukowski
----------------------------------I am equally fascinated by the theological inquiry into
the matter.
--You see, everything that exists changes.
--And that is a problem.
--Because if God exists, then God changes.
--Except nothing perfect can change.
--Therefore, all theologians admit that it is incorrect to
say "God exists".
--Some say, "it is incorrect, but let's say it anyway"
(Cataphatic theology).
--Others say "Don't say it.
--Never talk about God.
--Just live your life without thinking or talking about
God and you may experience God." (Apophatic
theology, sometimes called "via negativa" or the path
of the negative).
So when you run into an atheist, think of them as
someone who is following apophatic theology without
realizing it.
The Via Negativa is a school of theology from the
Middle Ages.
--They noticed that everything that exists changes.
--And that is a problem.
--Because if God exists, then God changes.
--Except nothing perfect can change.
--That means that God must be both perfect and
changing, which means our minds cannot form a
correct concept of God since our minds don't like
concepts that contradict themselves.
--Therefore, any concept of God you have is incorrect
and is standing between you and what God actually
is.
--So the Via Negativa people advocated not to talk
about God, not to think about God, not to pray to God,
in short, remove all concepts of God from your life.
--And if you do that, you have the greatest chance of
experiencing God.
RE: Dionysius the Areopogite
The first way, the way of On the Divine Names, by
causality, is called Cataphatic or Kataphatic ( =
affirmative) theology, and later on, the "Way of
Attribution", or "The Positive Way", the via affirmativa
or via affirmationis.
--(As you can see, the terminology is flexible.) The
other way, the way of The Mystical Theology, is called
Apophatic ( = negative) theology, or "The Way of
Remotion ( = removing)", the via negativa.
--This is the famous via negativa you sometimes hear
mentioned in connection with mysticism.
-- Both of these ways are necessary for a balanced
discourse about God.
--Cataphatic theology says that God is King and Lord.
--It therefore requires Apophatic theology to rescue it
from anthropomorphism.
--Apophatic theology ends up saying that God doesn't
even exist.
--That predicate too has to be denied of God, which is
not really surprising given the neo-Platonic context in
which the One is above even Being.
--Hence, Apophatic theology requires Cataphatic
theology to keep it from out and out atheism.
-- These two ways of talking about God, the
Cataphatic and the Apophatic, seem irreconcilable
opposites.
--But in fact they are reconciled, in a higher plane, a
higher mode of talking about God.
--This is the so called "way of eminence, the via
eminentiae or via abundantiae, and so on.
--Here we say that God is `super-good', for instance that is, more than good.
--Notice how this manner of speaking combines some
positive content - `good' - with the negative `super- '.
--The negative element does not just remove the
positive content or deny it (then we would be back to
Apophatic theology); it goes beyond it.
--It removes the positive content by saying more, not
by saying less.
-----------------------------------The ordinary cafe of the world
It is most difficult
to create art
in the ordinary cafe of the world
Look about.
The pieces to work with
are missing.
They must be created
or found.
The critics should be generous
and the critics are
seldom
generous.
They think it is easy
to put out water
with fire.
But there has been no wasted effort.
No matter what they have done to us:
The critics
The lost women
The lost jobs
Damn them all anyhow.
They are hardly as interesting as
this ordinary cafe,
this ordinary world.
We know there should be a better place,
an easier place,
but there's not.
That's our secret
and it's not
much
but it's enough.
We have chosen the ordinary,
withering fire.
To create art
means to be
crazy
alone
forever.
----------------------------------Astrology stems from the need to feel better in an
uncertain world and a random universe.
----------------------------------The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken
fan belt.
It's always darkest before dawn.
--So if you're going to steal your neighbor's
newspaper, that's the best time to do it.
Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile
in their shoes.
--That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile
away and you already have their shoes.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
-- Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat &
drink beer all day.
Duct tape is like the force; it has a light side & a dark
side, and it holds the universe together.
----------------------------------The Professor
Up in northern California
he stood in the pulpit and had been reading for some
time.
-He had been reading poems about nature and the
goodness
of man.
He knew that everything was all
right and you couldn't blame him:
he was a professor and had never
been in jail or in a whorehouse,
had never had a used car die
in a traffic jam,
had never needed more than
3 drinks during his wildest
evening;
had never been rolled, flogged,
mugged,
had never been bitten by a dog.
He got nice letters from Gary
Snyder, and his face was
kindly, unmarked and
tender.
-His wife had never betrayed him,
nor had his luck.
He said, "I'm just going to read
3 more poems and then I'm going
to step down and let
Bukowski read.
--"
"Oh no, William" said all the
female students in their pink and blue
and white and orange and lavender
dresses, "oh no, William,
read some more, read some
more "
He read one more poem and then he said,
"This will be the last poem."
"Oh no, William" said all female students
in their red and green see
through dresses, "Oh no, William" said
all the female students in their tight blue
jeans with little hearts sewn on them,
"read more poems, read more poems "
But he was good to his word.
-He got the poem out and he climbed down.
-As I got up to read
the female students wiggled in
their seats and
some of them hissed and some of them made
remarks to me
which I will use at some later date.
Two or three weeks later
I got a letter from William
saying that he did enjoy my reading.
--
A true gentleman.
-I was in bed in my underwear with a
3 day hangover.
--I lost the envelope
but I took the letter and folded it
into a paper airplane such as
I had learned to make in grammar
school.
--It sailed about the room
before landing between an old Racing Form
and a pair of shit-stained shorts.
We have not corresponded since.
----------------------------------On the back of a one dollar bill:
Annuit coeptus = God (The eye) smiles upon us
Novus ordo seculorus = our secular world order
----------------------------------New Jersey senate candidate Joe Corzine
Re: racial remarks
I should not have said what I am reported to have
said,
and if I did say it I apologize.
----------------------------------true revolution comes from true revulsion; when
things get bad enough the kitten will kill the lion Bukowkski
----------------------------------Formerly, the task was to supply things that people
wanted.
--The new necessity is to make people want the
things that machinery must turn out if civilization is not
to perish.
The problem before us is not how to produce the
goods,
but how to produce the customers.
- Samuel Strauss
----------------------------------Wait for me and I'll return.
-- Only wait...very hard.
-- Wait as you are filled with sorrow as you watch the
rain.
-- Wait in the sweltering heat.
-- Wait when the winds sweep the snowdrifts.
-- Wait even though others are tired of waiting.
-- Wait when no letters come to you.
-- Wait when others have stopped waiting forgetting
their yesterdays.
-- Wait even when my mother and son think I am no
more.
-- And when friends sit around the fire drinking to my
memory...wait and do not drink to my memory too.
-- For I will return defying every death.
-- And let those who did not wait slap me on the back
and say "You sure were lucky" For they will never
know that in the midst of death I had a secret.
-- Only you and I will know the secret of how I
survived.
-- It was because you waited when no one else did.
----------------------------------poem for lost dogs
that good rare feeling comes at the oddest times:
once, after sleeping on a park bench in some strange
town I awakened,
my clothing damp from a light mist
and I rose and started walking east
right into the face of the rising sun
and inside me was a gentle joy that was simply there.
another time after picking up a streetwalker
we strolled along in the 2 a.m.
--moonlight
side by side toward my cheap room
but I had no desire to bed her down.
-the gentle joy came
from simply walking along beside her in this confusing
universe
we were companions,
strange companions
walking together, saying nothing.
-her purple and white scarf hung from her purse
floating in the dark as we walked
and the music could have come from the light from
the moon.
then there was the time I was evicted for nonpayment of rent
and carried my woman's suitcase to a stranger's door
and saw her vanish inside,
stood there a while,
heard first her laugh,
then his,
then I left.
-I was walking along,
it was a hot ten a.m.,
the sun blinded me
and all I was conscious of
was the sound of my shoes on the pavement.
-then I heard a voice.
-"hey, buddy, you got anything to spare?"
I looked,
and sitting against a wall were 3 middle-aged bums,
red-faced, ridiculously lost and beaten.
-"how much are you short for a bottle?" I asked.
-"24 cents," one of them said.
-I reached into my pocket,
got all the change and handed it to him.
-"god damn, man, thank you" he said.
-I walked on,
then felt the need for a cigarette,
fumbled through my pockets,
felt some paper,
pulled it out: a 5 dollar bill.
another time came while fighting the bartender,
Tommy (again),
in the back alley for the entertainment of the patrons,
I was taking my usual beating,
all the girls in their hot panties
rooting for their muscular Irish man's man
("oh, Tommy, kick his ass, kick his ass good")
when something clicked in my brain,
my brain simply said, "it's time for something else,"
and I cracked Tommy hard along the side of the head
and he gave me a look:
wait, this isn't in the script,
and then I landed another
and I could see the fear rise in him like a torrent,
and I finished him quick
and then the patrons helped him up and inside
while cursing me.
-What gave me that joy t
hat silent laughter within the self
was that I had done it
because there is a limit to any man's endurance.
-I walked to a strange bar a block away,
sat down and ordered a beer.
-"we don't serve bums here,"
the barkeep told me.
-"I'm no bum," I said,
"bring me that beer."
the beer arrived,
I took a heady gulp
and I was there.
good rare feelings come at the oddest times,
like now as I tell you all of this.
-(Judy)
----------------------------------I enjoy attacking the sun with a squirt gun.
-as department store neckties wait to be sold.
the slip of the word like the knife into Cesar
----------------------------------the word
by Charles Bukowski
the word has no legs or eyes,
has no mouth,
has no arms,
has no intestines
and often no heart,
or very little.
you can't force the word
to do anything
it doesn't want to do.
-you can't overwork it.
-and you can't awaken it
when it decides to sleep.
the word will treat you well at times,
depending upon what you ask it to do.
other times, it will treat you badly
no matter what you ask it to do.
the word comes and goes.
-sometimes you must wait
a very long time for it.
-sometimes it never comes back.
sometimes writers kill themselves
when the word leaves.
-other writers will pretend
that it is still there
even though the word is dead and buried.
the word is not for everybody.
-and for most,
it's there just for a very short time.
the word is one of the most powerful miracles in
existence,
it can enlighten or destroy minds, nations, cultures.
the word is dangerous and beautiful.
if it arrives for you,
you will know it
and you will be the luckiest of humans.
-nothing else will matter
and everything else will matter.
you will be the center of the sun,
you will be laughing through the centuries,
you will have it,
your fingers your guts will have it,
you will be,
for as long as it lasts,
a god-damned writer
doing the possible impossible,
getting it down,
getting it down,
getting it down.
(Rachel, Susan P, Ed C., Ron E., Judy E, Elizabeth
E., Suzanne T.)
----------------------------------coming down the winding staircase with a bowl of
white carnations
----------------------------------twisting the cap off the tube of night
----------------------------------following the dog of summer to the end of his rope.
----------------------------------Sometimes I spend all day walking from room to
room, looking out.
--Sometimes I lean on the walls and they soften to
cloth and I pull them over my head and dream
----------------------------------When you are hit with problems—such as accidents,
illnesses, economic downturns, marital difficulties,
and natural disasters—you can easily become
discouraged and drained.
--Resilience is the ability to continue to work hard at
achieving your goals despite the obstacles, and you
can help build it in yourself by using these four
techniques:
1) Stay busy.
--activity restores vitality and restores energy.
--Energetic actions create upbeat fellings.
--Work as hard and as fast as you can, and use your
leisure time for construtive purposes: mow the lawn,
clean house, exercise, wash the car.
--Walk quickly and purposefully.
2) Seek out the positive.
--To stay tough, read biographies or stories about
people who have overcome hardships.
--Watch movies about brave people.
--Associate with courageous and disciplined people,
and ask them to tell you their stories about the
hardships they have overcome.
--Occasionally, read humorous stories or see a funny
movie: They release tension and anxiety.
3) Correct mistakes.
--Examine carefully all of the factors that have
contributed to your troubles; strengthen any
weaknesses and recognize your shortcomings.
--Remember that failure makes us wise precisely
because it teaches us about our strengths and
weaknesses.
4) Remember past successes.
--Get a notebook and record every time you've
overcome a setback or hardship in the past, and how.
--Make a list of all of your successes from childhood
to the present.
--Read the list often, recalling the feeling of success
and triumph.
--Following these guidelines will increase your
resilience, and put you on the path to success.
----------------------------------There are three ways to get to the top of a tree: 1) sit
on an acorn for a long time 2) make friends with a big
bird 3) climb it (Judy E, Ronnie)
----------------------------------Your hearing starts to improve when you see the
guillotine
----------------------------------There are two kinds of truth, small truth and great
truth.
-- You can recognize a small truth because its
opposite is a falsehood.
-- The opposite of a great truth is another great truth.
-- -Niels Bohr (Terry K)
----------------------------------Life is like a jigsaw puzzle but you don't have the
picture on the front of the box to know what it's
supposed to look like.
-- Sometimes, you're not even sure if you have all of
the pieces.
-----------------------------------In the 17th century, people thought about the mind as
though it were a mirror or a lens, just after there were
advances made in the fields of optics and
lens-making.
-- The Freudian model of mind, developed in the late
19th and early 20th centuries, seems based on the
ubiquity of the steam engine locomotive.
-- Ideas and thoughts billow up from the subconscious
to the conscious in the same way steam moves from
boiler to compression chamber.
-- In the early twentieth century, the mind was viewed
by some as a vast telephone switching network with
circuits and relays running through the brain.
-- For the past twenty years, we've had a new model
of mind: the computer.
-- ( sent to: Tara, Terry and Bruce A )
----------------------------------Instead of creatively realizing their freedoms, many
choose the unreflective conformism dictated by
television, indulgence in mass-consumerism, or
numbing their feelings of alienation and anguish with
drugs.
--In theory, freedom may be held in high regard; in
practice it is experienced as a dizzying loss of
meaning and direction.
-----------------------------------
In the germinal phase, ideas are generated and
manipulated; in the practical phase, they are
evaluated and executed.
-- To use a biological metaphor, the germinal phase
sprouts the new ideas and the practical phase
harvests them.
-- Both types of thinking play an important role in the
creative process, but usually during different phases.
-- Soft thinking is quite effective in the germinal phase
when you are searching for new ideas, thinking
globally, and manipulating problems.
-- Hard thinking, on the other hand, is best used in the
practical phase when you are evaluating ideas,
narrowing in on practical solutions, running
risk-analyses, and preparing to carry the idea into
action.
-- Soft thinking in the practical phase can prevent the
execution of an idea; here firmness and directness
are preferable to ambiguity and dreams.
-- Conversely, hard thinking in the germinal phase can
limit the creative process.
-- Logic and analysis are important tools, but an
over-reliance on them—especially early in the
creative process—can prematurely narrow your
thinking.
----------------------------------Our educational system does a fairly good job of
developing hard thinking skills, but there is not much
to develop soft thinking.
-- As a matter of fact, much of our education is geared
toward eliminating soft thinking, or at best, teaching
us to regard it as an inferior tool.
-- Human intelligence is a complicated phenomenon,
and yet almost all of our formal notions of intelligence
are based on logic and analysis— look at l.Q.
-- tests, for example.
-- Musical ability, decorating, painting, and cooking
seem to have no place in many testmakers
conception of intelligence.(Judy E)
----------------------------------I believe that everyone, to some extent, is taking a
single issue with them through their lives, and
whatever happens, they're always addressing the
same question—like a personal koan almost.
--Do you have a sense of what your question might
be?
----------------------------------Several centuries ago, a curious but deadly plague
appeared in a small village in Lithuania.
-- What was curious about this disease was its grip on
its victim; as soon as a person contracted it, he would
go into a very deep almost deathlike coma.
-- Most individuals would die within twenty four hours,
but occasionally a hardy soul would make it back to
the full bloom of health.
-- The problem was that since early eighteenth
century medical technology was not very advanced,
the unafflicted had quite a difficult time telling whether
a victim was dead or alive.
-- This didn't matter too much, though, because most
of the people were, in fact, dead.
-- Then one day it was discovered that someone had
been buried alive.
-- This alarmed the townspeople, so they called a
town meeting to decide what should be done to
prevent such a situation from happening again.
-- After much discussion, most people agreed on the
following solution.
-- They decided to put food and water in every casket
next to the body.
-- They would even put an air hole up from the casket
to the earth's surface.
-- These procedures would be expensive, but they
would be more than worthwhile if they would save
some people's lives.
-- Another group came up with a second, less
expensive, answer.
-- They proposed implanting a twelve inch long stake
in every coffin lid directly over where the victim's heart
would be.
-- Then whatever doubts there were about whether
the person was dead or alive would be eliminated as
soon as the coffin lid was closed.
-- What differentiated the two solutions were the
questions used to find them.
-- Whereas the first group asked, "What should we do
in the event we bury somebody alive, the second
group wondered, "How can we make sure everyone
we bury is dead?" (sent: Dave W, Ronnie, Paula, Joe
Beck, Ed Taylor)
----------------------------------We are engaged continuously in a process of self
deception, believing that which we want to believe
and asking other people to tell us what we want to
believe in order to reinforce that to feel good about
ourselves.
-- Memories change.
-- Memory is continuously being reconstructed
according to our psychological needs.
-- We modify our speech according to what we think
the other person wants to hear.
-- All of our relationships involve some type of deceit.
-----------------------------------Pay attention to the metaphors people use to describe
what they're doing.
-- Pay attention to the metaphors you use in your own
thinking.
-- As glorious a tool as metaphors are, they can easily
imprison your thinking if you're not aware how much
they're guiding your thoughts.
-----------------------------------The inuit term for friend is EE-LAG-AH in which you
punch your fists lightly onto their chest.
-----------------------------------To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is
not the acme of skill.
-- To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme
of skill.
-- - Sun Tzu, Art of War
-----------------------------------
The will to win is not as important as the will to
prepare to win.
-- - Vince Lombardi
----------------------------------The low sky presses like a lid on my spirit,
and all the wide horizon is curtained by a dark day
more sad than night.
The Earth is changing into a dank dungeon
where hope like a bat fluttering blindly, beats its wings
against the walls and bashes its head on the rotting
ceiling.
-Long lines of gray rain reach down becoming the bars
of a huge prison
and indifferent spiders lower invisible threads to
enslave us.
-- Suddenly, bells jerk wildly and hurl to the sky a
horrible shriek like some wandering spirit whaling in
despair.
And long hearses without drums or music file slowly
through the town.
-Hope, vanquished, weeps
and despotic agony plants its flag of black in the land.
----------------------------------Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson (Judy E)
••
-----------------------------------
The world you see is what you make of it.
-- Nothing more than that...It is the witness of your
state of mind, the outside picture of an inward
condition.
-- As you think, so do you perceive.
-- Therefore seek not to change the world, but choose
to change your mind about the world.
-- (Judy E, Terry K)
----------------------------------I wrote a song, but I can't read music so I don't know
what it sounded like.
-- Every once in a while I'll be listening to the radio
and I'll say, "I think I might have written that."
I put tape on the mirrors in my house so I don't
accidentally walk through them into another
dimension.
-I've been doing a lot of abstract painting lately,
extremely abstract.
-- No brush, no paint, no canvas, I just think about it.
-I have the world's largest collection of seashells.
-- I keep it on all the beaches of the world...
-- Perhaps you've seen it.
-I'm writing a book.
-- I've got the page numbers done, so now I just have
to fill in the rest.
-The other day somebody stole everything in my
apartment and replaced it with an exact replica...
-- When my roommate came home I said,
"Roommate, someone stole everything in our
apartment and replaced it with an exact replica." He
looked at me and said, "Do I know you?"
----------------------------------I have felt the breeze from the wings of insanity Beaudillaire
----------------------------------Robot walks into a bar Puts down a bill Bartender
says we don’t serve robots Robot says: Not yet, but
someday you will (Judy E)
----------------------------------We shall not cease from exploration.
-- And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive at
where we started and to know the place for the first
time.
--- T.S.
--Elliott (Ronnie, Judy)
----------------------------------Jack Handey: Sometimes life seems like a dream,
especially when I look down and see that I forgot to
put on my pants.
-----------------------------------"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them...
-- well, I have others."
----------------------------------When an actor comes to me and wants to discuss his
character, I say, "It's in the script." If he says, "But
what's my motivation?", I say, "Your salary." Hitchcock
----------------------------------"When my time on earth is completed, I want to go
quietly in my sleep, like the guy down the street ...
-- not screaming in terror, like the passengers on his
bus." (Judy E)
-----------------------------------
"Our greatest glory lies not in never falling, but in
rising every time we fall." -Vince Lombardi
----------------------------------Search for ideas and manipulate your knowledge and
experience.
-- With this outlook, you try various approaches, first
one, then another, often not getting anywhere.
-- You use crazy, foolish, and impractical ideas as
stepping stones to practical new ideas.
-- You break the rules occasionally, and hunt for ideas
in unusual outside places.
-- In short, by adopting a creative outlook you open
yourself up to both new possibilities and to change.
-----------------------------------Life is ambiguous; there are many right answers—all
depending on what you are looking for.
-- But if you think there is only one right answer, then
you will stop looking as soon as you find one.
-----------------------------------The practice of looking for the "one right answer" can
have serious consequences on the way we think and
confront problems.
-- Most people don't like problems, and when they
encounter them, they usually react by taking the first
way out they can find.
-- I can't overstate the danger in this.
-- If you have only one idea, you have only one
course of action open to you, and this is quite risky in
a world where flexibility is a requirement for survival.
-----------------------------------An idea is like a musical note.
-- In the same way that a musical note can only be
understood in relation to other notes (either as a part
of a melody line or a chord), an idea is best
understood in the context of other ideas.
-- Thus, if you have only one idea you can't compare it
to anything.
-- You don't know its strengths and weaknesses.
----------------------------------A reason that the rules should be challenged is as
follows:
1.
-- We make rules based on reasons that make a lot of
sense.
-2.
-- We follow these rules.
-3.
-- Time passes, and things change.
-4.
-- The original reasons for the generation of these
rules may no longer exist, but because the rules are
still in place, we continue to follow them.
-- Periodically inspect your ideas to see if they are
contributing to your thinking effectiveness.
-- Ask yourself, "Why did this program, project,
concept, or idea come to be?" And then follow this
question with, "Do these reasons still exist?" If the
answer is "no," eliminate the idea.
-----------------------------------Each of us has an "artist" and a "judge" within us.
-- The open-minded attitude of the artist typifies the
kind of thinking you use in the germinal phase when
you're generating ideas.
-- The evaluative outlook of the judge represents the
kind of thinking you use in the practical phase when
preparing ideas for execution.
-- I recommend that you avoid bringing in your judge
before your artist has had a chance to do his job.
-- Premature evaluation can prevent conception.
-----------------------------------“How wonderful that we have met with a paradox.
-- Now we have some hope of making some
progress." Bohr knew that paradoxes are crucial to
the creative process.
-- That's because they whack you out of narrow
thought paths, and force you to question your
assumptions.
-- Indeed, the very act of "seeing the paradox" is at
the crux of creative thinking—the ability to entertain
two different (and often contradictory) notions at the
same time.
----------------------------------Fred Edwords uses Tavist-D for his cat allergies (both
prevention and treatment)
----------------------------------Many people are not comfortable with errors.
-- Our educational system, based on "the right
answer" belief, cultivates our thinking in another, more
conservative way.
-- From an early age, we are taught that right answers
are good and incorrect answers are bad.
-- This value is deeply embedded in the incentive
system used in most schools.
-- From this we learn to be right as often as possible
and to keep our mistakes to a minimum.
-- We learn, in other words, that "to err is wrong.
-- " We have been conditioned to believe that failure is
bad in and of itself, rather than a potential stepping
stone to new ideas.
-- Look around.
-- How many middle managers, housewives,
administrators, teachers, and other people do you see
who are afraid to try anything new because of this
fear of failure? Most of us have learned not to make
mistakes in public.
-- As a result, we remove ourselves from many
learning experiences except for those occurring in the
most private of circumstances.
-- The whole history of discovery is filled with people
who used erroneous assumptions and failed ideas as
stepping stones to new ideas.
-- Columbus thought he was finding a shorter route to
India.
-- Johannes Kepler stumbled on to the idea of
interplanetary gravity because of assumptions which
were right for the wrong reasons.
-- And, Thomas Edison knew 1800 ways not to build a
light bulb.
----------------------------------Your error rate in any activity is a function of your
familiarity with that activity.
-- If you are doing things that are routine and have a
high likelihood of correctness, then you will probably
make very few errors.
-- But if you are doing things that have no precedence
in your experience or are trying different approaches,
then you will be making your share of mistakes.
-- Innovators may not bat a thousand—far from it—but
they do get new ideas.
-- The creative director of an advertising agency told
me that he isn't happy unless he is failing at least half
of the time.
-- As he puts it, "If you are going to be original, you
are going to be wrong a lot." Another client, a division
manager of a high-technology company, asked his
vice president of engineering what percentage of their
new products should be successful in the
marketplace.
-- The answer he received was "about 50%." The
division manager replied, "That's too high.
-- 30% is a better target; otherwise we'll be too
conservative in our planning." Along similar lines, in
the banking industry, it is said that if the credit
manager never has to default on any of his loans, it's
a sure sign he's not being aggressive enough in the
marketplace.
-----------------------------------Thomas J.
-- Watson, the founder of IBM, has similar words:
"The way to succeed is to double your failure rate."
Thus, errors, at the very least, are a sign that we are
diverging from the main road and trying different
approaches.
-- Nature serves as a good example of how trial and
error can be used to make changes.
-- Every now and then genetic mutations occur—
errors in gene reproduction.
-- Most of the time, these mutations have a
deleterious effect on the species, and they drop out of
the gene pool.
-- But occasionally, a mutation provides the species
with something beneficial, and that change will be
passed on to future generations.
-- The rich variety of all species is due to this trial and
error process.
-- If you're not making many errors, you might ask
yourself, "How many opportunities am I missing by
not being more aggressive?" Strengthen your "risk
muscle." Everyone has one, but you have to exercise
it or else it will atrophy.
-- Make it a point to take at least one risk every
twenty-four hours.
-- Remember these two benefits of failure.
-- First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn't work; and
second, the failure gives you an opportunity to try a
new approach.
----------------------------------You generate most of your new ideas when you are
playing in your mental playground.
--That's because your defenses are down, your
mental locks are loosened, and there is little concern
with the rules, practicality, or being wrong.
----------------------------------One of play's products is fun—one of the most
powerful motivators around.
-- I've noticed that a fun working environment is much
more productive than a routine environment.
-- People who enjoy their work will come up with more
ideas.
-- The fun is contagious, and everybody works harder
to get a piece of that fun.
-- The word 'enthusiasm' comes from the Greek word
enthousiasmos which means 'the God within you.'
Enthusiastic people seem to have access to a spirit
which serves as the source of their inspiration.
-- Another client had this to say about the
interrelationship of play and innovation: "Humor,
frivolity, and play have a place in this world.
-- Most large companies should remember that they
began with a person enjoying himself in the garage.
----------------------------------Nathan Olivera used to say "All art is a series of
recoveries from the first line.
-- The hardest thing to do is to put down the first line.
-- But you must." The same is true in business.
-- You must act.
-- A lot of business school types analyze things to
death and never get around to acting.
----------------------------------Going to a junk yard is a sobering experience.
-- There you can see the ultimate destination of
almost everything people desire.
-----------------------------------As a young priest in Milan, Italy, St.
-- Augustine had a problem, and so he went to his
bishop, Ambrose, for advice.
-- It seemed that Augustine was going to spend the
weekend in Rome.
-- His problem was that in Rome it was customary to
celebrate the Sabbath on Sunday, while in Milan the
Sabbath was celebrated on Saturday.
-- Augustine was confused as to which was the
appropriate day.
-- Ambrose solved Augustine's problem by telling him,
When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
-- The expression has survived to this day.
--(David W, Judy E.)
-----------------------------------
Alfred Sloan knew the dangers of groupthink.
-- In the late 1930's, Sloan was chairing a board
meeting at General Motors.
-- An idea was proposed and everyone present
became very enthusiastic about it.
-- One person said, "We'll make a lot of money with
this proposal." Another said, "Let's implement it as
soon as possible." And still another said, "We'll knock
the pants off our competition." After the discussion,
Sloan said, "It's now time to vote on the proposal."
The vote went around the table, and one by one, each
board member voted "Aye." When the vote came
back to Sloan, he said, "I, too, vote 'aye' and that
makes it unanimous.
-- And for that reason, I am going to table the
proposal until next month.
-- I don't like what's happening to our thinking.
-- We're getting locked into looking at this idea in just
one way, and this is a dangerous way to make
decisions.
-- I want each of you to spend the next month
studying the proposal from a different perspective." A
month went by, and the proposal was brought up
again at the next board meeting.
-- This time, however, it was voted down.
-- The board members had had an opportunity to
break through the effects of groupthink.
-- (Ronnie)
----------------------------------But I would say that precisely because of the
seriousness of his crimes he should not be killed.
--Serial killers are made not born.
--Killing him is a way to evade responsibility for the
violence that stalks this country, and as long as we
continue to insist that violence is merely a matter of
crime and punishment, and not a public health issue
as well, we will continue to incubate more such violent
people.
----------------------------------People are encouraged to accept without question
belief in a variety of mysterious forces - - for example,
supernatural devils or angels, or extrasensory
perception or psychokinesis .
-- This mindset creates fertile ground for New Age
thinking.
-- Once people have acquired a credulous mindset,
two almost universal desires begin to operate in the
promotion of superstition.
-- One is the desire to be deceived into believing
things we find pleasant.
-- The other is the desire to deceive others.
-- This desire is not always deliberate con-artistry;
sometimes deceivers are themselves also deceived.
--(Judy E)
----------------------------------13 Hazards of New Age Thinking By Pat Kehoe
1) It lays thepublic open to fraud and exploitation by
failing to provide either the means or the
encouragement to evaluate paranormal and
pseudoscientific claims.
-2) It disseminates misinformation, stating as facts
events and phenomena that are unproved or
unprovable.
-3) It encourages the belief that intuition and subjective
experience are more valid avenues of knowledge than
public, specifiable, observable and repeatable ways of
verifying experience and inference.
-4) It encourages a belief in arbitrary and sometimes
malevolent supernatural forces.
-5) It reduces personal responsibility by attributing
behaviour to powers and influences beyond direct
human experience and control.
-6) It implies that knowledge can be gained without
effort and that events can be predicted and controlled
through powers that are supernaturally bestowed.
-7) It rejects and even disparages critical thinking
analysis and skepticism, which are fundamental to
scientific and rational processes.
-8) It encourages a belief in the equality of options,
regardless of the evidence for them.
-9) Lacking any system of checks and balances, it
permits claims to be made without proof, challenge or
scrutiny.
-10) It employs devices such as the hypothesis that
cannot be refuted that are counterproductive in the
search for knowledge and understanding.
-11) Some claims can be actively harmful by
encouraging physically or psychologically dangerous
practices, such as encouraging people to throw away
their medication.
-12) Social policies may be developed on the basis of
erroneous, pseudoscientific claims, Nazi racial theory
being a classic example.
-13) It has special appeal to the naive and vulnerable
such as adolescents, the poorly educated, or the
emotionally troubled, who are taken in by the claims
of exotic, mysterious and wonderful forces and
powers, some of which can be acquired or used, and
others of which are to be feared, marveled at, or
defended against.
--(Judy E)
----------------------------------I took the escalator down from the 4th floor.
--Who invented the escalator? Moving steps.
--Now, talk about crazy.
--People going up and down escalators, elevators,
driving cars, having garage doors that open at the
touch of a button.
--Then they go to health clubs to work the fat off.
--In 4,000 years we won't have any legs, we'll wiggle
along on our assholes, or maybe we'll just roll along
like tumbleweeds.
--Each species destroys itself.
--What killed the dinosaurs was that they ate
everything around and then had to eat each other and
that brought it down to one and the son-of-a-bitch just
starved to death.
----------------------------------The Dream: A naked man walks into a fashionable
restaurant for dinner.
-- No one notices his nudity.
-- The hostess' only comment is that she can't seat
him without a necktie.
-- She offers him one.
-- Some Interpretations from across the United States:
1) The guy is clearly a closet exhibitionist who is living
out his subconscious desires in the dream.
-2) The person who dreams he is naked in public is
either leading an adulterous life or planning to.
-- The man is spiritually naked and needs to return to
Jesus.
-3) The man's desire to have dinner means he needs
nourishment for both his body and spirit.
-- Accepting the tie offered by the hostess indicates
that he is all too willing to conform to society's
expectations.
-4) The tie is a phallic symbol.
-- The hostess is the man's girlfriend.
-- She is telling him that he doesn't have enough
manhood for her.
-- He needs a new relationship.
-5) The man is trying to go back to the Garden of
Eden.
-- He wants a second chance to live a better life.
-- The hostess in the dream is the serpent.
-- He should beware of the serpent in his life.
-6) All dreams have clues.
-- The clue in this man's dream is going into a
restaurant nude.
-- He is so hungry for spiritual nourishment that he is
willing to risk ridicule and shame lo get it.
-- He sounds like a fallen away Catholic.
--(Judy E, Paula)
----------------------------------If a truth in photography law existed, the Federal
Trade commission would have banned photographs
in advertising years ago or required disclaimers such
as "Warning: Buying the products depicted will not
make you look this slim, happy or fulfilled."
----------------------------------Those who argue that editorial photographs represent
reality ignore the fact that a camera shutter operating
at 1/60th of a second can't possibly tell the whole truth
about a scene, and that the rectangular frame takes in
only a fraction of reality.
-----------------------------------In the US the bandwidth standard of TV transmission
is 525 lines of information.
-- For high quality reproduction, a typical photographic
negative would require more than 3000 lines.
-- 35 mm films capture 18 million pixels of usable
photographic data.
-- The state of the art digital camera registers 1.6
million pixels.
-----------------------------------An organized man is comfortable, even if there is
chaos all around him.
----------------------------------The smallest flower can give thoughts that often lie
too deep for tears
----------------------------------Her clothes were almost off.
-Outside a curious tree
beat a branch at the window
to see what it could see.
-Perched on an enormous easychair half nude,
she clasped her hands.
-Her feet trembled on the floor
as soft as they could be.
-I watched a ray of pale light
trapped in the tree outside
dance from her mouth to her breast
like a fly on a flower.
-I kissed her delicate ankle.
-She had a soft bruce laugh.
-It broke into shining crystals,
as she ducked her feet under her chemise.
- Artur Rimbaud
----------------------------------The Ten Commandments of Guitar Playing
by Captain Beefheart
1.
--Listen to the birds.
--That's where all the music comes from.
--Birds know everything about how it should sound
and where that sound should come from.
--And watch hummingbirds.
--They fly really fast, but a lot of times they aren't
going anywhere.
--
2.
--Your guitar is not really a guitar.
--Your guitar is a divining rod.
--Use it to find spirits in the other world and bring
them over.
--A guitar is also a fishing rod.
--If you're good, you'll land a big one.
-3.
--Wait until the moon is out, then go outside, eat a
piece of multi-grained bread and play your guitar to a
bush.
--If the bush dosen't shake, eat another piece of
bread.
-4.
--Walk with the devil.
-- Old Delta blues players referred to guitar amplifiers
as the "devil box." And they were right.
--You have to be an equal opportunity employer in
terms of who you're brining over from the other side.
--Electricity attracts devils and demons.
--Other instruments attract other spirits.
--An acoustic guitar attracts Casper.
--A mandolin attracts Wendy.
--But an electric guitar attracts Beelzebub.
-5.
--If you're guilty of thinking, you're out.
-- If your brain is part of the process, you're missing it.
--You should play like a drowning man, struggling to
reach shore.
--If you can trap that feeling, then you have something
that is fur bearing.
-6.
--Never point your guitar at anyone Your instrument
has more clout than lightning.
--Just hit a big chord then run outside to hear it.
--But make sure you are not standing in an open field.
-7.
--Always carry a church key.
--That's your key-man clause.
--Like One String Sam.
--He's one.
--He was a Detroit street musician who played in the
fifties on a homemade instrument.
--His song "I Need a Hundered Dollars" is warm pie.
--Another key to the church is Hubert Sumlin, Howlin'
Wolf's guitar player.
--He just stands there like the Statue of Libertymaking you want to look up her dress the whole time
to see how he's doing it.
-8.
--Don't wipe the sweat off your instrument.
--You need that stink on there.
--Then you have to get that stink onto your music.
-9.
--When you're not playin your guitar, cover it and keep
it in a dark place.
--If you don't play your guitar for more than a day, be
sure you put a saucer of water in with it.
-10.
--You gotta have a hood for your engine.
--Keep that hat on.
--A hat is a pressure cooker.
--If you have a roof on your house, the hot air can't
escape.
--Even a lima bean has to have a piece of wet paper
around it to make it grow.
-----------------------------------Dostoevsky against the wall,
the firing squad ready.
then he got a reprieve.
suppose they had shot Dostoevsky?
before he wrote all that?
I suppose it wouldn't have mattered
not directly.
there are billions of people who have
never read him
and never will.
but as a young man I know that he
got me through the factories,
past the whores,
lifted me high through the night
and put me down
in a better place.
even while in the bar
drinking with the other derelicts,
I was glad they gave Dostoevsky a reprieve,
it gave me one,
allowed me to look directly at those
rancid faces
in my world,
death pointing its finger,
I held fast,
an immaculate drunk
sharing the stinking dark
with my brothers.
----------------------------------I looked at the clock by Andre Credesceau
I remember when I put the clock on top of the radio.
-The time was 1976.
-Next time I looked, the clock was inside of the radio.
-The time was 1979.
-I put the clock radio next to the telephone.
-Next time the phone rang, it was from inside the clock
radio.
-I picked up the receiver and talked and listened to the
news.
-I noted the time.
-It was 1981.
-During my absence from the house one time, I
returned to find the clock radio telephone was part of
the television.
-In the months that followed the clock radio telephone
television became part of the stereo system, the
phone answering machine and the home computer.
-I looked at the clock.
-It’s faint pulse was barely visible because of all the
machinery around it.
-It was 1992.
-Recently, I felt something metallic jabbing me in my
back as a jack slipped neatly into my spine.
-The time is 1998.
-I no longer have to look at a clock to tell you.
-----------------------------------It takes an enemy and a friend, working together, to
hurt your feelings; the one to say something bad
about you and the other to repeat that to you.
- Mark Twain
----------------------------------I stopped, and it was imposingly, horribly quiet.
--The kind of silence which crushes air.
-- I lay there for five seconds, each an hour long.
--(Judy E)
----------------------------------Maggie Estep
FUCK ME
I'm all screwed up so
FUCK ME.
FUCK ME
and take out the garbage
feed the cat and FUCK ME
you can do it, I know you can.
FUCK ME
and theorize about
Sado Masochism's relationship
to classical philosophy
tell me how this stimulates
the fabric of most human relationships,
I love that kind of pointless intellectualism
so do it again and
FUCK ME.
Stop being logical
stop contemplating
the origins of evil
and the beauty of death
this is not a TV movie about Plato sex life,
this is FUCK ME
so FUCK ME
It's the pause that refreshes
just add water and
FUCK ME.
I wrote this
so I'd have a good excuse to say "FUCK ME"
over and over
and over
so I could get a lot of attention
and look, it worked
So thank you
thank you
and fuck ME.
-----------------------------------more placid than a waiting deck of cards,
----------------------------------There is a well-known Jungian analyst who, in
recounting his experiences with an array of patients,
noted that most came to him with a laundry list of
problems: their mates were not their friends, their jobs
were uninteresting, life in the city was difficult, their
health was bad, times were tough.
--In the early years of his practice, the analyst at first
believed that his job was to help these men and
women "adjust" to the world.
--Years later, he realized that his patients were right.
--Their world wasn't so great.
--Marriages were almost necessarily precarious,
many children were delinquent, schools were like
prisons, politicians were corrupt, the air was filthy, and
people on the streets were often mean.
--The analyst switched his way of dealing with the
patients.
--He no longer worked to help them "adjust." He
encouraged them to recognize that their sensitivity to
the world was normal.
--He believed that as they became more, not less,
sensitized to their environment, they would start to do
something about the problem rather than act the
victim all the time.
--The answer for them was to stay with the problems.
--Find something valuable down in the dreck.
--Work with it until you know that mess so well, it has
become your friend.
----------------------------------The despair of the inconceivable
On the face of it there is something rather strange
about human psychology.
-- Human beings live in the state of mind called sanity
on a small planet in space.
-- They are not quite sure whether the space around
them is infinite or not, either way it is unthinkable.
-- If they think about time, they find that it is
inconceivable that it had a beginning.
-- It is also inconceivable that it did not have a
beginning.
-- Thoughts of this kind are not disturbing to sanity
which is obviously a remarkable phenomenon and
deserves more recognition.
-- The perception that existence exists invalidates the
normal personality as does the immanence of death.
-- Now if you see that it is inconceivable that anything
should exist, it is evident that at least one
inconceivable fact is there.
-- That is to say, that which exists is not limited to the
conceivable.
-- Since the inconceivable is there, it is impossible to
set any limits to the quantity of inconceivableness
which may be present in the situation.
-- Now, were the existence of anything consistently to
remind you of the fact of inconceivability, (since it is
impossible to live without interacting with a large
number of existing things), it would be impossible for
you to feel in the same way about the conceivable.
-- If anyone were reminded of the inconceivable by
the fact of existence constantly, he would sooner of
later have the perception that there may be
inconceivable considerations which are inconceivably
more informed than any conceibable consideration
could be.
-- Now if you do have a perception that any
conceivable consideration may be utterly invalidated
by some other consideration which you do not know
and if you are reminded of this perception constantly
by the fact that things exist, certain modifications take
place in the way you feel about things.
-- These modifications do not take place in the
psychology of most people.
--The starting point if one is interested in the universe
involves observing that one is finite and that this is
intolerable.
-- One has limited time and apparently limited
capacities with which to find anything out.
-- Therefore it is possible to despair.
-- There are many orders of despair and none of
them are known to normal psychology.
-- This is demonstrated by the fact that it has not
become existential.
-- Normal psychology will never devalue anything.
-- Existential psychology, at least to a certain point,
consists of exploring the recoil from the despair of
finitenes.
-- The recoil is a drive with at least the instinctive
immediacy of the survival instinct.
-- There is no point in saying "What is there to do?"
What could such a drive possibly tend towards? The
survival instinct tends to prolong life.
-- The fundamental drive tends to inform itself about
the universe.
----------------------------------Like a lonely astronaut My small-town childhood was
punctuated with liftoffs— Atlas rockets carrying gemini
capsules, saturn rockets launching apollo, t-minus
twenty and counting at cape kennedy, roger, houston
control.
--I wanted to blast off to the city to buildings tall as
rockets, to a phone book bigger than eleven pages—
thick and rich stuffed full of opportunities.
--I didn't know, then, that like a lonely astronaut,
orbiting twenty thousand miles above the cape
looking down at the blue earth looking down at
straight rows of pale new lettuce in rich black loam,
furrows perpendicular to the roads, sprinklers making
rainbows in the sun, looking down at ancient orchards
of gnarled trees their trunks painted white, they would
call to me, still, after so many years of orbit, going
around and around, higher and higher, reaching for
the moon, after years still calling to me as if it were
yesterday that i rode my bike past nosy, staring cows,
and dreamed of reaching escape velocity, t-minus
twenty and counting, roger, houston control, i want to
come home.(sent to ed c, tom m, judy E, Jan)
----------------------------------Upon the double zeroes of our blinking eyes
----------------------------------The audience screamed hair raising, gutteral
peroxyms of zeal
-----------------------------------
A man said to a woman strolling her baby in the park
"My, what a beautiful baby you have".
--She replied "Thank you, but you should see his
photograph"
----------------------------------Just how much longer do they think this bag is gonna
make tea?
----------------------------------Let's be realistic: every time you say "good morning"
to somebody and you do not mean "good morning",
you are that much less alive.
-----------------------------------Your enemy or the devil might turn out to be a pretty
good guy if you could learn his language and drink
beer with him and pinch his wife when he goes to the
bathroom.
----------------------------------It reminds me of a room full of electricity and heat
when it's very cold outside and you sit and listen to
the clock tick.
-----------------------------------It seemed to me the man in camus' stranger showed
more courage than the hemingway man because his
courage was a courage of acceptance rather than
defiance.
-----------------------------------I am like a child hiding what he thinks is a hell of a
jewel in my back pocket, and I don't want to show it to
anybody.
--If I do, it will be in the proper temple.
--
----------------------------------It's very important: not to try, either for cadillacs,
creation or immortality.
--You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some
more.
--It's like a bug high on the wall.
--You wait for it to come to you.
--When it gets close enough you reach out, slap out
and kill it.
--Or if you like its looks you make a pet out of it.
----------------------------------Leonardo Fibonacci discovered a sequence in the
year 1202: 1, 2,3, 5, 8, 13, 21...
--and discovered it is all over nature
----------------------------------To see an atom, take a basketball and blow it up to
the size of the earth.
--An atom would be the size of a grape.
--Then, enlarge the grape to the size of St.
--Peter's.
--The nucleus would be the size of a grain of salt.
--The dust in the air would be the electrons.
--Everything else is empty space.
----------------------------------He was never in love with the sunlight or watching a
cat walk across a rug.
-----------------------------------No matter what you do, a certain number of people
are going to dislike it, others will like it, and the vast
majority will not give a damn one way or the other.
--Once you understand this, the snipers will not make
so much difference.
-----------------------------------
This morning I stood on the front lawn, sun coming
down, I was barefoot, nobody around, all these
highrises, everybody off somewhere on their fucking
crosses, and I stood there in the sun, haven't shaved
in two weeks, hair uncombed, ripped shirt, 4 buttons
missing from the fly of an old pair of army pants
somebody had given me, and I smoked a cigarette
and grinned into the world, knowing its shit and its
blood and its plan, but I was in this special space
somewhere for a moment, and it was quite good,
quite, by god.
--Of course, the butcher knife is still in the kitchen and
I keep it good and sharp and that's part of it too.
--Stay on top of your game, babe, stay on top of your
game.
--And a little bit of luck is nice too, but don't look for it.
--(Gwen, paula, terry, joe todaro, tom mazur, Judy E,
Ronnie, Bruce A, Connie S, Tony C., Tom Nemo,
Ross Runfola, David W., Yvonne)
----------------------------------Relationships:Behind all of it lays a living hell.
--I know you're not going to quit the chase, but when
you go into it, for christ's sake, realize that you are
going to be burned ahead of time.
--Never go in totally open.
--The madhouses and skidrows are full of those.
--Remember, the female is any man's woman at any
time.
--The choice is hers and she's going to rip the son of
a bitch she goes to just like she ripped you.
--But never hate the woman.
--Understand that she is channeled this way and let
her go.
--Solitude too brings a love as tall as the mountains.
-----------------------------------I know how it must be with the ladies, we must give
them all the extras of tongue and touch, because
that's a creation too, making a lady truly hot, and, at
the same time we must get away from them long
enough to create ...
--I think the man who said, the strongest men are the
most alone, was right.
----------------------------------Well, the female is a clever creature.
--She knows how to regulate her affairs.
--Most often it is the man who falls apart; it's the man
who jumps off the bridge.
--When we give over our feelings they run off with us.
--There's no regulating them.
--I give over my feelings too easily, and it's not all
relegated to suck and fuck.
--I get as much, or more, out of the other parts.
--Small talk.
--Breakfast together.
--Sleeping while touching.
--Waiting while the other goes to the toilet.
--Love-making after a stupid argument.
--Drinking beer with maddened friends.
--Hundreds of tiny things.
--I am never bored when I am with my woman.
--I get bored in large formless crowds.
--Bored, hell, I get desperate, I lather and blather at
the mouth, my eyes roll, the sky shakes.
-----------------------------------You sound like you're getting love-security from a
man you want and don't want.
--I'd rather imagine you're shopping around for the
spark, that's why you're dating other men.
----------------------------------Luck with your new love, but remember that few
people hold up over the long run.
--Weaknesses begin to appear all over shit.
--It depends upon how much weakness you can love
along with the good parts.
----------------------------------"poetry is an art form.
--Like all art forms, it is subjective and it does not
have sex organs." I don't know about your poems, but
mine have cock and balls, eat chili peppers and
walnuts, sing in the bathtub, cuss, fart, scream, stink,
smell good, hate mosquitoes, ride taxicabs, have
nightmares and love affairs, all that.
----------------------------------total madness
All those tiny rooms in all those cities, going from one
city to another, from one cheap rented room to
another, terrified and sickened of what people were.It
was the same any place and every place,thousands
and thousands of miles spent looking out the window
of a greyhound bus, listening to them talk, looking at
them, their heads, their ears, the way they
walked.These were strangers from somewhere else,
lifeless parallel perpendiculars, they drove the blade
through my gut, even the lovely girls, with guile of
eye, with the lilt and magic oftheir bodies were only a
down payment on a mirage, life's cheap trick.I went
from room to room from city to city, hiding, looking,
waiting...For what? For nothing but the irresponsible
and negative desire to at least not be like them.I loved
those old rooms, the worn rugs, the walk down the
hall to the bathroom, even the rats and the mice and
the roaches were comrades.And along the way
somehow I discovered the classical composers.I had
an old record player and rather than eat I used what
funds I had for cheap wine and record albums.And I
rolled cigarettes, smoked, drank, listened to the music
in the dark.I remember one particular night when
Wagner really lifted the ceiling of my room I got up out
of bed joy-stricken, I stood there and lifted both arms
toward the ceiling and I caught sight of myself in the
dresser mirror and there was nothing left of me, a
skeleton of a man, down from 200 pounds to 130,
with sunken cheeks.I saw this death skull looking at
me and it was so ridiculous and so lovely that I started
to laugh and the thing in the mirror laughed back and
it got funnier and funnier as I lifted my arms higher
toward the ceiling.And along with those old rooms, I
was lucky, I had gentle old landladies,with pictures of
Christ on the stairways, but they were always nice in
spite of that"Mr.
--Chinaski, your rent is overdue, are you all nght?"Oh,
yes, thank you ""I hear your music playing, night and
day, you sit in your room night and day with the
shades pulled down .
--Are you all right?""I'm a writer." "A writer?""Yes, I
just sent something to a publisher, i'm sure i'll be
hearing from them any day now." Somehow if you told
them you were a writer they would put up with all
sorts of excuses' especially if you were in your early
twenties.Later on, it was a hard sell (as I was to find
out.)But I loved those small rooms in all of those cities
with all of those landladies and Brahms and Sibelius
and Shostakovich and Ives and Sir Edward Elgar and
the Chopin etudes and Borodin, Beethoven, Hayden,
Harldel, Moussorgsky, etc.Now, somehow, after
decades of those rooms and half-assed barren jobs
and after tossing out literally 40 or 50 pounds of
rejected manuscripts I still return to a small room,
here, to recount to you once more the wonder of my
madness then.The difference now being that while my
writing hasn't changed that much, my luck has.And it
was in those rooms in the half light of some 4 AMA
shrunken man on the shelf of nowhere was young
enough to then remain young forever.
----------------------------------Dealing with my critics? It's like I'm climbing a ladder
and dogs are attacking my heels.
-- I can take the time and kick the dogs, or, I can just
keep climbing up the ladder.
--- Maria Montessori
----------------------------------This is what I like about Buffalo and its people: no
frills, no show, honest and modest - Keiko Sei
----------------------------------Happy Birthday was written by Patti Hill and Mildred
Hill as a kindergarten song "Good morning to all".
--They changed the lyrics and copyrighted it in 1935.
----------------------------------From LA GATTA CENERENTOLA by Roberto de
SimoneTHE SECOND CHORUS OF THE
WASHERWOMEN [As they continue with their
washing, the Washerwomen strike up a wild song,
about an imagined sexual encounter with the King.
--During this one of their number is taken with a
frenzy.] Oh, Madonna, what a lovely dream, Oh,
Madonna, what a lovely dream Came to me in my
sleep during the night, With the thought, the same
obsessive thought That hammers at your mind at the
age of sixteen When you toss and turn in bed And
turn and toss, and toss and turn, Without ever finding
peace.
-- The king came to me in my dream.
--He came to me as if he was Really there in front of
me Yess... Yess... Yess... Yess... It was really him,
just as he is, As handsome as San Pasquale,
Peaches and cream, milk and honey, Like the fish of
San Rafaele.
--Oh, Madonna, I felt, I felt a wooden beam in my
breast, A beam, a pole, Two shots from a gun, And a
thrust of a knife, A hammer, working heel and toe,
When it knocks a nail in without bending it.
--Pumice stone and petting, Mother of mine, mother of
mine The king He wanted me Yess... Yess... Yess...
Yess... Me with my English handkerchief, All starched
and held just so, I returned his thrust With a gracious
movement.
--The windows came down, The shutters came down,
That covered his heart, That covered his heart...
--Because right at the best point of the dream, Just
when you're thinking of making love, There we were,
in my dream, with the sheets All tangled up, lying side
by side, Ah...
--ah...
--ah...
--ah...
-----------------------------------The dead
The dead are on television
selling us cars and beer.
The dead are sitting in offices.
The dead are thankful on Thanksgiving,
drunk on New Year's Eve.
The dead eat with the dead.
The dead sleep with the dead.
The dead dance with the dead.
The dead are getting deader.
Do not scream at night
even if
you feel like it.
Get up
and walk to the kitchen
and sit there,
sweating,
at three o'clock
in
the morning.
----------------------------------the typewriter has turned on me like a tiger leaping at
his trainerthe grave diggers are licking their palms in
the sunsetfacing the bayonets when I walk out of the
doorsharpshooters still surround me and they pick me
off little by little while humming patriotic hymnssome
young artist is on fire all flame flame FLAME and they
let him burn away to razor across the wrist while Mr.
--Somebody dulls the screams with flat verse on
flat-printed expensive paper I hope that you are still
alive, I hope that I am not now speaking to the top of
a coffin lid.
----------------------------------I know why Hemingway needed the bulIfights, it
framed the picture for him, it reminded him of where it
was and what it was. Sometimes we forget, paying
gas bills, getting oil changes, etc. Most people are not
ready for death, theirs or anybody else's. It shocks
them, terrifies them. It's like a great surprise. Hell, it
should never be. I carry death in my left pocket.
Sometimes I take it out and talk to it: "Hello, baby,
how you doing? When you coming for me? I'll be
ready."There's nothing to mourn about death any
more than there is to mourn about the growing of a
flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives
people live or don't live up until their death. They don't
honor their own lives, they piss on their lives. They
shit them away. Dumb fuckers. They concentrate too
much on fucking, movies, money, family, fucking.
Their minds are full of cotton. They swallow God
without thinking, they swallow country without
thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others
think for them. Their brains are stuffed with cotton.
They look ugly, they talk ugly, they walk ugly. Play
them the great music of the centuries and they can't
hear it. Most people's deaths are a sham. There's
nothing left to die.
----------------------------------The Crunchtoo muchtoo little too fattoo thinor nobody
laughter ortears haterslovers strangers with faces
likethe backs ofthumb tacks armies running
throughstreets of bloodwaving winebottlesbayoneting
and fuckingvirgins.
--an old guy in a cheap roomwith a photograph of m.
--monroe.
--there is a loneliness in this world so greatthat you
can see it in the slow movement ofthe hands of a
clock people so tiredmutilatedeither by love or no
love.
--people just are not good to each otherone on one.
--the rich are not good to the richthe poor are not
good to the poor.
--we are afraid.
--our educational system tells usthat we can all bebigass winners it hasn't told usabout the guttersor the
suicides.
--or the terror of one personaching in one placealone
untouchedunspoken to watering a plant.
--people are not good to each other.people are not
good to each other.people are not good to each other.
--I suppose they never will be.I don't ask them to be.
--but sometimes I think aboutit.the beads will swingthe
clouds will cloudand the killer will behead the childlike
taking a bite out of an ice cream cone.
--too muchtoo little too fattoo thinor nobody more
haters than lovers.
--people are not good to each other.perhaps if they
wereour deaths would not be so sad.
--meanwhile I look at young girlsstemsflowers of
chance.
--there must be a way.
--surely there must be a way that we have not
yetthought of.
--who put this brain inside of me? it criesit demandsit
says that there is a chance.
--it will not say
"no."
----------------------------------An angry gaze like a flamethrower.As serious as a
gravedigger.