amfortas the hippie

The Net of Indra

2012-02-12T08:04:00.000-06:00

I have always found it near impossible to narrow my interest to anything close to a specific field or pursuit. I have been a lover of science, for instance….a scientiaphile?...for as long as I can remember…Why, then, did I not become a Scientist? To become a Scientist in late 20^th Century America, one must choose a “Field”, which would not be so bad….But,then, one must narrow down one’s focus to something within that Field…then narrow down further, to some aspect of the specific. From early on, I noticed connections and patterns…across Fields. There were no Fences. When I started looking at College, all I found was Specificity…Specialisation.

Consider….describe the Chair you’re sitting in.

Then stand back. Describe the Chair, and the Room around it, and their Interconnections. Now, go across the street.

Across the Country.

To the Moon.

Further back one goes, in Perspective, the more data there is, regarding that Specific Thing one is looking at, attempting to Understand. To Truly Understand one’s Chair, one must Understand the Universe in which it sits.

Of course no one has such a God’s Eye View…but, due to this fact, which is scary, Science has gone all the way in the other direction…to Specificity.

Cartesian Dualism, and all that. (Subject/Object(Observed/Observer))

Reckon this looks like a form of Extremism.

I feel a deep, abiding need for a more Whole-istic, Comprehensive View.

This was pretty much ignored in the Scientific World, as far as I knew then. In reality, but unknown to me, this Generalism was , indeed, quietly growing. There was no “Degree Plan” for this, however. Colleges, at least the State colleges I looked at, would teach you how to Specialise, with Generalisation , if any, relegated to a chapter or two, here and there.

Luckily, I was really into Philosophy….where there is at least Room for such ideas.

No one, as I’ve elaborated elsewhere, was keen on me Majoring in Philosophy.(even though I had been studying Philosophy since I was 8-10)

It has, in fact, taken 20 years of Self Directed Study to even articulate this concept.

And now, Generalisation in Science is just now hitting the “Mainstream”.

In Geopolitics, too…relatively few Thinkers broke out of even such kind of broad subdivisions as “Economics”, “Political Philosophy”, and whatnot. Zbignew, Kissenger, and the like, come to mind. C.Wright Mills.

History, too…I prefer Toynbee, Barzun and even Durant. I’m not interested in Minutae…on this date, the Archduke was slain in Sarajevo. I want the context. People are slain every day, after all. Context is what makes this particular death interesting.

It’s hard to do, sometimes….pull back far enough to have a comprehensive understanding, yet still maintain sufficient Granularity, that it makes sense.

It’s like the difference between Dune, or LOTR…and Clarke’s 9 billion names of god…the latter is good, in it’s own right…but it doesn’t hold a candle to the breadth and depth of the former two.

This is why I like Jung, rather than Freud, or Skinner or Piaget, etc.

Jung developed a comprehensive system…a Framework…on which he could then hang various Specifics, and then stand across the street, regarding the Whole.

As I grew older, the more I found this focus on the Specific to be lacking…

When I was “encouraged” to take on RTF…there it was, this lack.

Context. How do we, budding Broadcasters, hope to fit in to the Whole?

There was nothing about the “Industry”, and where it was going….nothing about how what we were training for would soon be Obsolete.

Lack of Whole-ism, Context, the General…is really a big problem in the world, today.

A glance at Climate Science is instructive. To understand it, one has to plug in Economics, Politics, Geology, Space Science, Chemistry, Biology,….on and on. Ya hafta be a Generalist to understand something so complex. Looking at a thunderstorm will not suffice.

Or Biotech…the Corporate Lab(I forget who) that was about to release a GM Organism that would have sterilized the world…until a grad student said…”Whoa…slow down…think”. The Bug would have been awesome at making Ethanol from Biomass…and that’s as far as the thinking went. No one, but for this single Grad Student, considered the possible unintended consequences…if this Bug had been set loose. With nothing to stop it, it could have turned whole continent’s worth of topsoil into Alcohol.

I think that whole scenario (which really happened) is Scary as Hell…and it is due, for the most part, to a focus on the Specific….and an almost Total Disregard of the General.

I approach the Spiritual in the same way…indeed, I find it difficult, and sort of counterintuitive, to separate Spirituality(at least as I see it…experience it) from the Empirical Universe of the Observed. Cartesian Duality is very useful in looking at the Specific…but when one ventures across the street, to the Moon, and turns around…One is still a Part of what one Beholds. As above, so below.

One of my favorite things to think about is Indra’s Net….this is a perspective on the Universe, wherein all of Reality is conceived of as a vast, limitless spider’s web, and where every Node, where two or more strands meet, is a Diamond….and all of those Diamonds are Reflecting each other. In this context, plug in the information that (in the Hippie Trope) “we are Stardust…”…all matter was generated in stars, that exploded millions, billions of years ago, sending more complex elements out , into Universe…some of which constitutes my body. The water in the Llano River was generated from simpler stuff in a star, somewhere, sometime…and was delivered hence by Comets.

The Science that discounts such considerations as Mysticism, is correct, of course….but when that Scientific, Cartesian Mind, then discounts such considerations as irrelevant…I reckon that as Dogmatic. This is part of what Rosenstock-Huessy was on about…that Cartesian Dualism tends towards Dogmatism…again, that Universalism that the Enlightenment inherited from Pre-Enlightenment Darkness.

It may have been a necessary phase, this universalism…but perhaps it has outlived it’s usefulness. Perhaps we are at a stage where it is necessary to Broaden our conceptions…

RH specifically(lol) picked on the application of Cartesianism to Psychology…how can one separate oneself, as an Observer, in such a situation as the Psychoanalyst, Observing the Patient? There is a back and forth, a Dialog…between the two…necessarily…and to discount that relationship, beyond the learning of psychological concepts and techniques, is ,I suspect, counterintuitive.Subjects observing Subjects.

The same sort of thing is operable in so called Quantum Physics…Uncertainty, the dead cat…the Observer Created Universe.

It’s closer to Rumi, than to Einstein.

There is no Spoon…

I find great satisfaction is such musings…especially at the River…and especially on a weekday, when the highway is quiet…and the only sounds are those of Nature…

Park the canoe(with NCC-1701, in orange, on the bow,lol) next to a cliff, made of billion year old rock…covered with myriad types of lichen, and ferns in the cracks, the water lapping at the base…cast off exoskeletons of dragonflies, still clinging to the crust of dead dried algae.All this, and more to my right…and to my left, an expansive view of the Texas Hill Country…

…and I think about how much We still do not know…and the Bubble of Our Awareness(as a Species), in five dimensions, expanding in all directions, as We gain further Understanding.(the 3 dimensions of space, plus time, and then the fifth, inner and outer. )

There is still much to learn.

The Flat Earth.

2012-02-07T14:05:00.002-06:00

(This is a LTE, in response to this:

http://www.masoncountynews.com/news/article/50290)

Individuals who enjoy a weekly megaphone should be sure that they don't needlessly spread demonstrably false information...unless that is their intention.

Climate Science is Complex. There's a lot of Variables to consider, many of which Science doesn't completely understand. Knowledge is Provisional, and Science is the never ending pursuit of better understanding. We will never Know.

However, Science has proved to be a remarkable tool in furthering our understanding of the Universe. It comes as a shock to some folks that a Scientific "Theory" is as close to "Fact" as Science can come. What most folks seem to think "Theory" means is more akin to "Hypothesis", literally "Placing Under"...a Supposition....a Foundation from which to Enquire.

A "Theory" is not an educated guess. It is the Temporary End Result of Testing one's Hypothesis. Much of this Testing in the area of Climatology, is done with computer Modeling....where the Inputs are the observed Climate Record...some of which is pieced together from Ice Cores and Tree Rings, and even Sedimentation...Strata at the bottom of lakes, and the like. Data from Buoys and Satellites and Balloons...about currents of wind and water, over time...are plugged in...

Some of the most powerful computers on Earth are pressed into service to "build" these Models....

And it works, rather well....and has passed the further Test of Falsifiability, as well as Prediction. (what the Models were predicting 20 years ago, has come to pass) The Overwhelming Consensus, among Climate Scientists, as well as the Scientific Community, as a whole, is that Global Warming is a Real Phenomenon...that it's Getting Worse...and that Human Activity, for the last Century, or so, is Responsible. We have entered the Anthropocene.

Denialists like to point to the so-called "Climate Gate" fiasco....which a cursory look at the Record indicates was created out of Whole Cloth by a few Right Wing Bloggers, then picked up by Fox. The original emails in question were taken out of context, by Nonscientists. Tempest in the Teapot, indeed.

Another favourite riposte is what, on the surface, looks like contradictory Data."How can there be Global Warming if it's Snowing?" or, "How can they be warning of an Ice Age, if the Planet's Warming?". The former is mistaking Weather for Climate.

The latter is a simple failure to appreciate the Complexity of Climate.

The warnings about an Ice Age, are referring to the effects of a whole lot of Fresh Water(which floats), from melting Ice Caps, entering the North Atlantic, and "shutting down" the Atlantic Conveyor....of which the Gulf Stream is a part. This would, indeed, cause dramatically Colder Temperatures in Europe(London is the same latitude as Nova Scotia), and the North East of North America...and then the "Positive Feedback Loops" could kick in, and the party really gets going.

The point is, I guess, that we need better Science Instruction in Schools. This wouldn't be such an issue if we all were on the same page, regarding things like "What's a Theory?"....Too, there is an enormous apparatus churning out those Tempests I referred to....and this Wurlitzer is funded by Interests who would like to keep things as they are...for Short Term fun and Profit. Mud in the Water.

The Problems we, as a Species, face are Huge...but they don't fit well on a bumper sticker. That does not make them any less serious.

Thanks, '

Inquisition;

2012-02-06T09:17:00.003-06:00

(Weed as a Civil Rights Issue.)

I've bitched about the treatment, overt, and not, I've received in my life, due to my insistence on keeping my hair long. One might wonder why this is such an issue for me...and I've covered this, I hope..( http://amfortasthehippie.blogspot.com/2010/09/hair-crusade.html)

There is another side to all this, however. Why is long hair on men so threatening, in this country? After all, we pretend to pride ourselves on tolerating Self Expression....there is a long, proud history of bucking trends, of being one's own man, and the like. And, I must note, women have, for a long time, enjoyed the freedom to choose their hairstyle...short, or long. To my knowledge, short haired women have never been singled out for extra scrutiny by Law Enforcement....

What gives?

Observe:( http://edu.glogster.com/media/4/27/4/68/27046854.jpg)

Since the sixties, long haired men have been associated, indelibly, with dope smoking hippies. If you are a long haired man, hippie, or no, you now what I am speaking of. In our "Culture", if you are a man, with long hair, you are automatically Suspect....You Must be Hiding something...up to something nefarious.

(advising me to "just cut it" is analogous to insisting that we all wear uniforms...think about it.)

It's the association, in the minds of LEO's, and many "Normal People", of long hair with Weed, that is at issue.

Which brings me to my Beef, today.

Since the loosening of restrictions in California, more than a decade ago, much neglected research has finally been done into the dangers and benefits of Weed. It will come as no surprise to those who have Inhaled that the research bears out what we have known all along...Weed is pretty harmless...and beneficial. Many states have finally given the go ahead for Medical Use of Weed, for a variety of ailments...but the Recreational Use of Pot is still Taboo, for some reason.

Every day, there is a constant stream of folks....good, upstanding Citizens...into the stores to procure Beer, Wine and Liquor. They are not buying this for their health....and so such subterfuge is required of them...by Law Enforcement, or by Society.

They are looking to relax...and to Catch a Buzz. Many are quite open of their intention to Get Drunk.

How much alcohol was consumed yesterday...Superbowl Sunday?

And consumed openly, and without any stigma being preemptively attached? The inevitable fights, accidents and even deaths, as a direct result of this consumption, are mourned in passing, and tacitly forgiven...overlooked.

For Potheads, and even for casual users of Marijuana(the majority), it is an entirely different experience.

We must procure our choice of Relaxant in often seedy, often dangerous circumstances. Not only is the supply given over into the hands of, necessarily, the Criminal Element...we also have to worry about Law Enforcement.

One Joint can get you a prison sentence, in some circumstances.

And, because of the Inquisitorial Nature of the Drug War, the person you Share that Joint with may be an informant, or even a Cop. Many people who get caught with a joint are given a choice...go to Jail, or Inform on your Friends.

History Rhymes.

How many Dictatorial Regimes, down through the Centuries, relied on just this tactic to impose their rule?

The Catholic Church had it's Inquisition...which did the same thing...given, with more ruthlessness and violence...but, still...

I realise that all of this is loosening, somewhat, in more Enlightened parts of the country...ie; Texas is a pretty Backwards place,lol...but such Enlightenment, and forbearance by LEO's, is inconsistent, to be charitable.

It is well known, by Potheads, that there is something like a Pot Culture....Passing the Joint, for instance...and a shared need to avoid detection....a shared quality of being a Persecuted Minority in an Intolerant Nation.

This Culture, of Sharing, and Commiseration and inherent Solidarity, is routinely shattered by the Crusade against the Noble Weed. Law Enforcement spies on the Citizenry....the aforementioned subversion of Trust among Pot Smokers...the employment of Dogs, and Illegal Searches, and an array of technology more befitting the Battlefield...

...and all of this supported, and justified, by a Mythology...consistently disproven by Science and by Anecdote...that Pot is a Great Evil...an Existential Threat to America.

The recent flourishing of Research into all aspects of Marijuana doesn't make a dent in the Mythology....and does nothing to sway the True Believers...especially those who run the Inquisition. It is like an Article of Faith, among the cops I've known(and, near as I can tell, this is widespread), that Pot is as dangerous as Heroin or Coke...that it makes the user jump out of windows, and go on Murderous Rampages....and that it, inexorably, leads one to become addicted to the rest of the Schedule 1 Pharmacopia.(Gateway)

Fear of all of this Nonsense is triggered, in LEO's, by the sight of a long haired man driving down the highway....or sitting in a cafe...walking down the street.

How is this any different than the Original Inquisition?

They aren't burning Potheads at the Stake...but they are certainly ruining lives...and burning through Billions of Dollars of Taxpayer Money to do so. This is to say almost nothing of the rampant and shameful corruption of LEO's by a Criminal Element that would not even exist, were it not for this Inquisition and Crusade.

This was all started as a tool to persecute Minorities....and to protect certain Industrialists(paper, dupont) from Competition. It also served to give a purpose to the now purposeless apparatus of the Failed Alcohol Prohibition. Then, in the late 60's, early 70's, Nixon used it as a tool to Persecute all those Hippies on the White House Lawn...and , now...all of these reasons are still applicable. Added to them are the Protection from Competition of Big Pharma....and the continued relevance of the Giant Anti Drug Industry, including the Cops. There's a lot of Jack to be made in keeping "Drugs"(Pot, especially) Illegal, Forever.

This is Not a good reason to continue.

I'll not dwell on the Race aspects of the Drug War, as that is covered adequately elsewhere....my Beef, as a white dude with long hair, is what i have experienced.

There is a Law on the books in Texas, since '07, giving every Jurisdiction a choice of how to treat minor Pot "Offences"...with the specific option to treat them as a traffic ticket,...no jail, just a fine...like for not wearing a seatbelt. To my knowledge, this has only been applied in Travis County (Austin)...and there, only sporadically. In this era of anaemic governmental budgets, I long to lobby the Sherriff to make use of this Law...save some money by ceasing the local part of the Crusade against Weed...I long to Speak Out, locally, in advocacy of Ending the stupid, Failed War on Drugs.....But I have no illusions. Such actions would only serve to paint a Target on my already hirsute head. ...And thus is my Freedom of Speech unwittingly curtailed.

Even if you do not enjoy Pot...even if you never intend to...every American should oppose the continuance of this. The Science, alone, begs for at least a frank discussion....

The furtherance of the Mythology-Based Crusade and Inquisition against a subset of the American People is Wrong. It is counterproductive(as in, it is a Failure, by it's own Criteria)...and it is inherently Unamerican.

How much Proof do we need?

Lobby!

2012-02-02T14:13:00.003-06:00

(http://billmoyers.com/episode/on-winner-take-all-politics/)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_in_the_United_States)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtier)

The first Wiki, up there, includes in the broadest definition of "Lobbying"....me.

...Since I regularly bother "My" Representatives and other Gooberment Creatures.

This is certainly flattering, but...somehow...I feel less than effective. I have long thought of running something of a Poli/Sci experiment...where I would "lobby" a set of Congresscritters...before....and After making a large-ish "Contribution"....just to see if there would be any change in behaviour. Would that I had the extra cash...I think it would be , at the very least, entertaining

The narrower, more familiar definition is, sadly, out of my league. "Gucci Gulch" and K Street, and wherever else these lizards lay, are filled with folks with Serious Bank...as well as what are tastefully referred to as "Connections". I was saddened that wiki didn't have that word as a link...for more information. What are "connections". exactly...and what are they worth, versus the piles of cash?

I am guessing, regardless, that I do not possess such "Connections". The Whores and Weasels that I usually irritate are specimens that I wouldn't vote for in a hundred years...and I refuse to keep my correspondents in the Dark on that score. Ergo, sycophancy is out. I am not connected to either money or Power...or the mob...or anyone, really. So Extortion is also out.(like there aint no extortion happening...)

It appears that I am stuck filling up the Congressional EMail Server...and when I'm really angry, the Capitol Switchboard(202-225-3121).

Use it , or Lose it. In theory, these folks are Your Employees...join me in giving them a piece of Our minds.

De Nile.

2012-02-02T09:47:00.001-06:00

Oh, Look! More proof of the veracity(as in non"conspiracy theory",lol) of Peak Oil.

(http://en.zaman.com.tr/en/newsDetail_getNewsById.action?newsId=4965#.TyoM6n8N4lY.facebook)

Add this to the growing list...National Geographic, Scientific American, Forbes, the Economist, the Atlantic.....

And yet..."My" Congress Critter, Conaway...at least his minions who deign to reply to such as me...think it's a bunch of hokum. (and that Corporations are "just People"...so why am I surprised?)

Drill , Baby, Drill!

...and when the last tree falls, Jesus will come.(an actual quote, from some Rethuglican, insanely put in charge of forestry issues..dont remember who...)

Of course, Mr Conaway has deep ties to Oil and Gas...he got his leg up in politics by being an accountant for the Bush Crime Family...Harken Oil...the Midland Mafia, et alia...

Sigh. I thought Incest was a bad thing....I guess that if it's merely figuratively incestuous, it's as American as Apple Pie.(hold the Carbaryl)

While Conaway seems like a nice enough guy, personally...I have much misgivings about his adherence to the Right Wing Gospel.

His support for an audit of the DOD is great...and I have said so...but the kneejerk reactionism of almost the entire rest of his voting record does not fill me with hope.

Last election, the Texas Democrats could only find a Right Wing Nutjob to run against Conaway... a nominal "Democrat" who was, in many ways, worse than the Incumbent. (the use of "State's Rights" and other unibrow code words,kinda gave him away,lol."grain alcohol and rainwater..." Ha!)

Conaway's district (21?) is one of the Hammer's gerrymandered Monstrosities...stretching from West Texas Oil Country all the way over here...to Mason...to what used to be in the district with Austin. Like many of the other Delay Creations, this is silly and counterintuitive....unless the goal is permanent Rethuglican Majority.

Anyhoo...I've sent Mr Conaway a link to an advocate of Methane Digesters...Poop=>"Natgas"...

I don't expect any acknowledgment, since e widepread replacement of septic tanks and sewer systems with such energy producing tech would negate the Hydraulic Despotism currently enjoyed by our Corporate Masters in the Energy Sector. Can't have the little people taking such matters into their own hands.

Regression

2012-02-02T08:44:00.000-06:00

I've been re-reading, as I've said, Reine Eisler's "Chalice and Blade"....this, as well as Joseph Campbell and Gimbutas, were foundational to my outlook. I am a somewhat accidental Feminist. So deeply have these things sunk into my psyche, that even the word "Feminist" seems limiting...inadequate...with connotations of being simply the other side of a coin, rather than a comprehensive, whole-istic world view.

Eisler, and the others, make a compelling case....and I find it instructive that so much effort has been marshaled to discredit and belittle these ideas.

In the same way that Western Historians, until very recently, ignored much evidence suggesting that the pre-Columbian population of the "New World" was many millions....in other words, that the effects of European disease went before the actual Europeans, giving the impression of a relatively uninhabited place, ripe for the taking....in the same way, any suggestion or proposal that threatens the Mythos of Man the Warrior/Hunter, of Primitive Man the Brute, of an alternative way to structure a society, is simply disregarded....attacked as "Utopian", "Pseudohistory"....

Liberalism ( look it up...I'm not talking about the Faux Definition...) leans towards Feminine Values...what Eisler calls Gylanic....Partnership, as opposed to Dominator....Cooperative, versus Uber-Competitive.

"Conservatism" is the Reaction to this.(see: http://www.alternet.org/story/153919/the_truth_about_the_conservative_mind%3A_why_reactionaries_from_edmund_burke_to_sarah_palin_have_fought_real_liberty_/?page=entire)

For almost 40 years, those who have historically held Power have been fighting a war for the Mind....it's been a shadow war...fought with Memes, and Slogans and Framing. It relies on Fear....whether of the Other, the Brown People Du Jour, or of loss of status, and function...

Why, for instance, can we not have an Equal Rights Amendment? Who does it threaten, the idea of Women having equal pay, equal rights to property, and the like?

Why, after 911, was the obvious...what our country had done abroad to engender so much Hatred...off limits?

The Drug War...which is, for the most part, a War on Weed....why do we continue it? Is it because Weed encourages Thought, and Peace and Sharing?(refute,)...

Labor Unions....why are they so vilified? Is it due to their challenge to Hierarchical, Authoritarianism?

Again and again, there are patterns that connect...Hippies...Quakers...Liberals...Environmentalists...all those who advocate a more Peaceful, Rational and Egalitarian World....these are the Enemies of the Man...the Dominators.

I note that Kucinich has had a very difficult time promoting the creation of a "Department of Peace"....why? Why is Peace and cooperation so threatening to the (largely) Men who Rule us?

One of my main beefs with Christianity is it's focus, since the 3rd or 4th century, on War and Hatred and Destruction....and on a My Way or the Stake Mentality.....rather than on the Ideals and Utterances of it's purported Founder.

Are we really doomed?

Can enough of us not make a conscious Choice (Heresy...look it up)...to change this Dynamic? Are the war monger's feelings so fragile and important? Let alone the "Troops"....my God!...is calling the recent Imperial Wars "Wrongheadded" and Stupid...such an affront to those who were fooled into fighting them? Must we tiptoe through the minefield of PTSD, and say nothing of how Evil our invasion of Iraq was?

In growing up with a disabled Vietnam Vet...I learned rather quickly that one must not criticize that war...no matter how, Objectively, Stupid it was. His Psychological Equilibrium, such as it was, relied on sustaining the Belief that our actions in Indochina were good and just...that he lost his legs for Freedom and the American Way....

This continues, on a National, Societal Scale.

We are Cowards.

Untill a critical mass of Us find the Courage and Fortitude to speak out against all the War and Hate and Domination and Uber-Competitive Psychotic behaviour...nothing will change.....except for the worse.

Science is only used when it enhances and supports the male-centric Authoritarian Dominator System...otherwise , it is disregarded. Same with Religion...Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild? No...can't have that... God is Pro War(Fallwell)...Jesus with a Sword...(and Women as Property!) Turn the other cheek...in order to distract your enemy, lol.

I note that "Democracy" is well and good, when the supposed "Will of the People" gives us Violent Imbeciles for leaders....it is suspect, if not "un-American", if it brings Reason, Intelligence or a Black Dude into the White House.

Locate your spine, my Fellow Americans...that wrinkled mass at the top of it is your Brain.

Please, begin to use them both.

Corps(e)

2012-02-01T13:10:00.001-06:00

There's a "new" way of doing things, economically. So called "State Capitalism (see the current issue of the Economist). This is where the Authoritarian State takes over, or forms, a Corporation. Like China owning it's phone company, or Saudi Arabia buying controlling shares in an Omani Gas Drilling Company. This is the Legacy of State Communism...and, like that arguable perversion of a Good Idea, relies on Force, Coercion and Authoritarianism. I don't reckon that anyone reading this would desire to live under such a system...it has all those traits that the Propagandists of the Cold War railed on about the USSR. One could say that the East has a long acquaintance with Authoritarianism....

In the West, we have acquaintance with a different kind of Authoritarianism...and our Corps reflect this. It is Myth that USA is a Purely Capitalist Country(world without end...)

here, our Government didn't purchase, or found, the Corps...the Corps, instead, ate the Government.

We both operate under certain fictions...in the West, that everyone is Free, and all the rest of the Liberal Democratic Canon....in the East, that everyone knows their place, and that the Heirarchy is equivalent to the Cosmic Machine.

Both of these, East and West,State owned Capitalism, and Capitalist Owned State, seem to be pointing in the same direction....an end to Liberal Democracy, and an end to Individual Freedom....Both are inherently Authoritarian...

All us little people are to be merely cogs in the wheel.

As I've said, and alluded to, repeatedly...I prefer a loose fundamentalist resurgence of Adam Smith's Capitalism....tempered with Marx's Socialism.

The thing that jumped out at me, with Smith...was the need to distribute the Means of Production as widely as possible. Democratise Everything. Instead of Petrobras, or Exxon...a million little oil companies(we need a new word?)connected up to a state supported infrastructure of distribution, refining and whatnot. (Oil is a bad example, per the reality of PO).

The naysayers fear that "We" will somehow "Lose", if we went this route....that "We" couldn't compete with Exxon or Petrobras....I figure that that sentiment is predicated on certain assumptions that need not be as important as the current Paradigm makes them. The world will soon begin Shrinking....with the end of cheap oil.....instead of Global Concerns, Local will become more and more important.

Perhaps the Corporation has reached the limit of it's usefulness.

I think of the success of the Internet....a million nodes...interconnected...headless, and therefore unkillable. Distributed Network. You know the story. Robust,.

Why not apply the same Model to what we call "Business"....which is the identification of Needs/Wants, and the attempt to satisfy them.

For 30+ years, the mantra has been that Capitalism is the End of History...that this is proved by the collapse of the USSR(state commie...not really Marxist,btw)...and that the Free Market(supposedly the thing we're aiming for(!?)) will triumph....and that there is no alternative(TINA).

Brewing and fermenting in far off China, where the Masters of Capitalism sent all our Plant(?), is this alternative..."State Capitalism".

.............I can hear the new ideological, existential struggle, already....

Democracy, as usual, is given no consideration...at best, only lip service...like a tshirt.

Perhaps Adam Smith, Marx and Thoreau(!!!) should be taught in high schools...ha! it says a lot that this is utterly unlikely.

(http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6491/)

(http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6470/)

(http://www.alternet.org/story/153933/7_signs_the_corporatocracy_is_losing_its_legitimacy--and_7_tools_to_help_shut_it_down/?page=entire)

(http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/this-changes-everything-how-the-99-woke-up)

Dionysian Psychosis. Bar the Door.

2012-01-28T10:34:00.000-06:00

On a Normal Day, I am Apollo…in the Neitzschean sense…(see:Birth of Tragedy). Reason dominates…cool, calm collective…unruffled. Clinical detachment.

Sometimes, though, Dionysius comes…and I am just the opposite.

A “Therapist” told me several years ago that I suffer from “Bipolar NOS”(not otherwise specified,lol)….and that my descent into Drunken Psychosis is my “Manic Phase”.

There are, apparently, Triggers that induce this state….and the Trick is to determine just what these Triggers are. No small task.

I have, from earliest times…although I was unaware of it…been quite shy. In hindsight, I chalk this up to being a Freakish Genius, among the Mundane. I was never like the other kids…and was unskilled at and bewildered by Social Norms and Constructs…

I clung to my Anomalousness… it was, and is, my defining feature.

Too, it turns out that I was/am what Jung referred to as “Innately Sensitive”…my sense organs function “Too Well”…which may sound great, but is really quite uncomfortable, especially in Crowds.

These two “qualities” set me apart…social situations were, in the main, horrible experiences. Our “Culture” is not very tolerant of Strangeness…and I have always been Strange…and, with the Vibe Antenna,I Grokked the reactions of others to my Strangeness.(how accurate this Antenna is, is unknown.)

Round and round.

Alcohol was the cure, it seemed…although, at the beginning, the side effects were a little bit worrisome. (These side effects have grown worse, over time…to say the least.)

I found myself drinking, before anything having to do with social interaction…and then, it was normal…kids drink, after all. But I was, unknowingly, drinking to cure something….social anxiety.

Later, after the Cop Crusade, the betrayal by Her, and all that came with it…drink numbed the (psychological) Pain.

I knew, from the time I was 19, that I had a “Problem”…and even sought treatment…but I was Anomalous in this, as in almost everything else. AA, and all the other systems and ways of Treating alcoholism, are geared, designed, to treat the Average Drunk …and I was anything but average. I could go for long spells without a drink…I generally didn’t “take a nip” in the morning…etc. I was a binge drinker. And, counterintuitively, I knew what I was doing…

I didn’t accidentally drink, like many of the folks I met at AA…I deliberately set out to drink…to get to the Sweet Spot(see Streetcar Named Desire)…where my control ended was after the Sweet Spot had been reached. This is where things got entirely out of hand, and I found myself to be very crafty in finding more drink.

Another anomalous effect that alcohol seems to have on me, is the stimulant quality. This is well known in the research…it acts as a stimulant on almost everybody…but in most folks, this effect diminishes…and it’s true nature takes over…folks generally pass out, at some point. I do not…

Wanna keep me up for 3 days? Keep the beer flowing.

For a long time, I’d drink after work, due to my legs…and this was mostly fine…

Alcohol is a remarkable analgesic.

These Reasons for procuring alcohol, and indulging, were very real…not excuses…the Pain relief, especially. I was, for a long time, quite unaware of the Social Anxiety…the nascent Agoraphobia…that I was, inadvertently “Treating”.

That didn’t occur to me till much later.

911, the birth of my Son, and the collapse of my Café…as well as the broad societal movement towards fascism…all of this contributed to my withdrawal from the world. Panic Attacks….and less intense Anxiety Attacks…I was bewildered by this. The Rightward turn of the country was particularly acute out here, in rural Texas. My inherent Anomalousness was more glaring than ever…and made ever worse by the drive to Understand what all was happening. The more I learned, it seemed, about the world…the more anomalous I became.

In decent times, Americans have a penchant for denial, and a general Fear of the Other…the different. In hard, confusing times, this Penchant grows worse.

And here is me….Anomaly, personified.

The long term feeling (not unwarranted) that I do not Belong…was confirmed at every turn. I withdrew.

By this time, my legs, etc had deteriorated to the extent that I could no longer work…and this increased my Isolation…self-reinforcing loops. Not only was it Physically Painful(and scary) to go among the Mundanes(I walk funny, and fall down)…it was often Psychologically Painful(and terrifying).(I cannot fathom “small talk”, and no one seems to understand what I think about.)

Now, life is all about avoiding Triggers…I cannot go to basketball games, for instance. I abhor long trips, especially back “Home”…too much memory and associations. ….Dionysius comes to attempt to relieve the pressure…

It usually fails.

After a Dionysian Drunken Revel, I often won’t leave the house(the depressive phase).

I wallow in self loathing…and drown in a well of self pity…and wonder what Dionysius did, while Apollo was away.

All of this is made more intolerable by the Far Place I find myself stuck in…like a moth in a web. If the country , as a whole, is intolerant(in varying degrees) to Anomalousness…a Podunk Texas Town is even worse. For 10 years, the folks around here have been instructed by Fox to Fear the Other.(there is no other “news”, is there?)

I know myself to be Other….and when I lift the basket from my Shining Mind, it is apparently apparent to them that I am Other.lol.

Ergo, I am a Hermit.

And try really hard to suppress the Dionysian Urge for Release.

I have been only moderately successful in this endeavor.

Apollo’s mouth is shut…knowing that Lofty Sentiments, Erudition, and even Logic, itself, are largely unwelcome in my part of 21^st Century Amerika…

Dionysius’ mouth is open…and all the pent up Rage, and Loneliness and Mike the Martian-hood…as well as the limiting effects of my Crippleness…burst forth, whether they are wanted , or not.

Something Hidden

2012-01-27T09:39:00.003-06:00

Several years ago, my Dad gave me a canoe.

He figgered he was getting a little long in the tooth for such exertion, and had other watercraft, anyway.

I live between two relatively pristine rivers…the Llano, and the San Saba…that appear to be made for such things. Around the same time, also thanks to Dad, I got really into Fly Fishing….for which our Rivers are also made.

This was a year or two before my legs finally went, although, at the time, I still worked, and could as yet get around pretty good. I was aware of the approaching Disability, though…and I think that this awareness played a large part in my drive for Exploration…I became something of a Fanatic for the Rivers…especially the Llano.

There is a stretch, about 10 miles, of the Llano…between White’s Crossing, and the 87 Bridge…that I came to know rather well. Massive cliffs of billion year old rock…deep pools, interrupted by rapids (Class I, and one or two Class II)…Green water in the pools, clear as air, in winter…Rock Garden at the lower end of My Stretch…Caves!...Overhangs…both with evidence of Smoke on the ceilings…I once found a Folsom Point, just lying there in a little pool.

There was never anyone else on the river, at the beginning…now, one can often be interrupted by a flotilla of kayaks…city people from a fly fishing club… staring at the naked hippie Fly Fisherman waist deep in Ladder Hole(essentially Wearing The River…lol).

I know My Stretch like the back of my hand….and even have the distinction of having performed the only Comprehensive Biological Survey(unpublished, alas) of that part of this River…at least that I can find.From Copepods to Crayfish to Minnows to Kingfishers to Ospreys…I kind of glossed over the Flora…I had intended to do a separate Survey of that.

I camped! Sometimes with my Older Son, and his buddies…but mostly alone. I have tried to make a point of camping over Spring Break…often when it’s still quite cold…and on Father’s Day…but as my Bones deteriorate, I find that I must bring more and more crap with me…this year, a damned mattress!(sucks getting Old and Broken)(This is designated my “Camping Mattress”) No more simple bedrolls, and sleeping on the ground…

Too, I fear the days of Exploration are over…at least by myself. I fear getting stuck…my hip could break…and there’s no cell service in the River.

A depressing development.

The feeling of floating down, straining to see around the next bend…

(“Something lost, Go and Find it…”)

I had intended to get a kayak(my canoe is sort of heavy), and go upriver to find the source…and to float the whole length of the River…and I have dreamed of a large Expedition…from Mason, all the way to Matagorda.Llano merges with the Colorado, in Kingsland…What a trip that would be!(about 2 months worth) Epic.

If I could film it…or even just take many pictures…it would have been a good coffee table book.

400+ miles, from White’s Crossing to the Mouth of the Colorado.

Oh , well…

I must be contented with what I Can do…it’s a month and a half till Spring Break…and I’m making lists of what I’ll need to stay at the Lion Tree, at Soldier’s Crossing, for 3 days, without inordinate Pain…

What used to be Jeremiah Johnson meets the African Queen...is now more like the Snows of Kilimanjaro.

Piojo.

2012-01-27T09:38:00.000-06:00

Sitting naked by the fire, hair full of olio olive…to smother the theoretical little bastards.

My kindergartener brought them, along with his homework.

Fruitbasket turnover…wash all the bedding…now I’m on mine…

Pillows take such a long time….and they always feel wet, even when they’re not.

I’m amazed that there is still a social stigma to this…but not really surprised.

There are so many Zelda Fitzgerald wannabe’s…who must look down their noses at everyone, in order to maintain the fiction of self worth.

My hair is too long and thick, and flecked with grey, and white(and perhaps dandruff?) to determine the actual presence of arthropods….and I fear a reaction of some sort from pouring permethrin onto my scalp….so it’s old fashioned, Mediterranean Folk Remedies.

Wiki says that the safest, most effective countermeasure is working Vaseline into one’s hair, and letting it sit there for a day….

Visions of Robert Burns, in Church…

The DNA studies of Head and Body Lice, are very interesting…they were the same thing…the same critter, ere we began wearing clothes. Now, they are still essentially the same organism, but do not comingle…and only deign to mate under laboratory conditions.

Hemingway said,”The world is a fine place….and worth fighting for.”….and I agree.

Such Wonders.

Wages of …Sin?

2012-01-22T10:29:00.002-06:00

How many times in my life have I coasted into town on fumes?

Here is where the Myth meets the Reality, in the starkest of terms.

When I began working, in 1985, I made $3.85/hour…

When I “Retired”, in 2006, it was $7.50.

Figuring in Inflation, thanks to the Fed’s handy calculator, just to stay even, I would have needed $7.85.

That’s with no Real wage increase, in almost a quarter century.

The Bosses seem to see no great problem with this…a Job is a Job is a Job….

But it’s not. I was a Chef/Kitchen Ninja…20+ years experience…

Yet, in my last “Real” job, as Kitchen Manager of a Café “Run” by a late middle aged Widow, who had been to the Manor born…Offering me $8 was presented as if she was doing me a favor.

I was made to feel Greedy when asking for a raise, after 7 months.

She ran the place into the ground…only her great wealth kept it animated, after it’s demise…

My salary worked out to $9/hour.

It was the most money I had made in my life.

One is supposed to love one’s country, without question…unless one, presumably, lives in France….but I cannot.

Aside from the Evil Foreign Policy we have visited on the world in the last century…aside from the sneaky machinations of Spooks, on “My Behalf”…my country has, long ago, abandoned it’s Poor, as well as the lower end it's Middle Class. Now, it’s putting the finishing touches on the abandonment of everyone else…save the Super Rich. Will it, one day, abandon them, as well?

The aphorisms and advice from my Grandfathers, was no longer applicable, even as they were uttered. Hard work, sacrifice, taking Pride in the Product of one’s Labor…all of this was Moot, at the beginning of my working life. Only no one could see it. It was right there, stinking on the factory floor, but we couldn’t see it…wouldn’t see it.

The lower levels saw it first….but no one listened. Those on the bottom rungs were simply not working hard enough…or were spending beyond their means…or were drug addicted lazybones. Let them join the Legions, get some discipline…and a leg up. But the Legions were already, increasingly, relying on food stamps, and the like, themselves.

The Truth of the matter is that wages, across the board (except at the tippy top, of course) have been stagnant, relative to Inflation, since the mid-70’s. No one below the top 5%, or so, has had a real “Raise” in around 40 years…instead of Parity in Wages, we have all been encouraged and cajoled, and made desperate enough to fall for it, to “Take Advantage” of “Easy Credit” to make up the difference.

Official Numbers were cooked…Burger Flipping = Manufacturing, Steak= Hamburger,the Hiding of M3, Inflation didn’t include such luxuries as Food and Fuel, and folks like me, who fall off the back of the Hay Ride, are simply not counted, any more.

There are likely deep psychological reasons that so many are able to swallow this whole, while the Abyss grins.(see:Fromm)

The myths are clung to, like masses of fire ants (Invictus!), clambering atop their own dead, when the flood is come.

Perhaps this is due to the inclusion, in the Mythos,of the fallacy, that if you ain’t rich, it’s yer fault…God hates you, otherwise you’d be smiled upon, in the Marketplace( Hear, Oh Israel…). It doesn’t matter the circumstances, it’s you and your weathered bootstraps that are to blame…always. Welfare Queens in Cadillacs, Hawaiian Vacations paid for with Food Stamps (which no longer exist…it’s a debit card; and as fraud-proof as bureaucracy can make it), Lazy Stupid Drug Addicted (unwhite) Folks are so crafty that they routinely Game the System…and vote for those Librul Socialists in the Other Party(rats), who promise more largesse….wealth transfer from the deserving rich to the undeserving (unwhite) Poor….

It’s a fine narrative…and it was fine when it was first crafted in the mid-70’s(note the date), by a few rich white guys…

It is also total bull shit.

It carries as much Value as the current American Dollar.(around four cents, in 1913 $’s)

This is no big surprise(see the state of education in Economics, for elucidation. Economics= Balancing a Checkbook)…

What is a big surprise is that so many folks who have ,like me, fallen off the back of the wagon, still believe this…Evidence doesn’t matter. Math is a Librul Plot. It’s Socialism.(??!!)

This is Psychological…if we begin to admit that we, too, are fallen behind…that we, too, have spent beyond our means, that we’ve been suckered into upside down mortgages, just like the Evil Poor…that our kids will Not have it better than we did….then, under the Mythos, We are solely to blame. The Wages of Sin are Just, after all…and we must’ve sinned mightily…to be counted among those Untermenschen…

….and yet it still has to be, somehow, somebody else’s fault…likely the Great Librul Conspiracy, between the Poor and the Librul Elite, and Hollywood…and….France!

I never intended for this to be one of my favorite quotes…the man was the epitome of Evil, after all…but credit, where credit’s due; “What luck for the rulers, that Men do not think”.- Adolph Hitler.

Age of Release

2012-01-10T13:20:00.000-06:00

Winter. Rainy and cold, yesterday…now it’s sunny….and colder. I cannot get warm…the cold has entered my bones. I feel as if I’m stacked wrong.
I’m Painful…Exhausted(I don’t sleep)….and Terminally Bored.

I’m thinking about Cold Frames…intending to construct a few at the earliest opportunity…weather and bones, permitting.

I feel a great Urgency to do this, and many other things…

This is not the run of the mill 2012-ism…that’s just one of myriad threads that make up this cloth…

The Framework I’ve been working on…of which this little Blog is like gliding on cloudtops…has turned out to be more accurate than the Conventional Wisdom Version….

Came across a less Drunken Poet Exposition of what I’ve been trying to point to…(http://www.dharmagaians.org/6-2.PosDis.html)

Interesting site…I agree, totally.

I’ve been re-reading Eisler’s “Chalice and Blade”…it’s the current Truck Book(kept in the truck for when I have to wait)…the Dominator/Cooperator Dichotomy is one of the foundations of the Framework…beyond L/R, D/R, Lib/Con…even beyond the idea of Progressive vs. Regressive….these are all too Simplistic…and too prone to manipulation…that Colonization of Memes….

The Fight is between the Dominator Paradigm, that has dominated for 4-7 thousand years, and has culminated in Us….and the Cooperator Paradigm that has been subdued, raped and pressed into slavery.

We’re all Indians, now…(R. Means?)

Clif High, I notice, is being more forthright than ever…and so much less cryptic…this, in itself, says volumes.

The End of the Dominator Paradigm, this March, according to Clif’s Spiders…seen in “Modelspace” as an end to Tension Building Language….and then Release Language stretching out for as far as Modelspace will go…

The Violent Parasitical Elite require Tension Building, in order to keep Us asleep and docile. I look around, and note that there seems to be a lot of Waking Up going on….must be very worrisome for the Machine.

The God, after Millennia of escaping his ordained Fate,… to be Sacrificed, so that the World can be Reborn…is caught in his own web…Goddess strikes the match…without Malice, but because it must be so.

There is a Unitive Thread to Things…I see it in Star Wars, in LOTR, in the Mythology of the world, and in the Mundane Political Philosophies, that seem to come and go….

Arthurian Romance , the demonisation of All Things Liberal…

…and now, at the End, the Machine is attempting to Fence Everything in to it’s Paradigm, it’s System of Belief…Too many have escaped…

Machine will destroy itself.

It reached too far, and the bough is breaking.

Perpetual Growth, on a Finite World…it’s telling that so many are surprised…and remain in Denial.

Help Wanted

2011-12-11T14:49:00.000-06:00

On days like today…wet, thick air, cold,damp,

wet…I get lonesome for July.

Three woodstoves roaring.

Green lights, incense, candles

Heat.

Jazz,

I like a Hot Lubowski….(a bath, with a Splif)

Shiner Vacation.

Barricade the doors and windows, against the Cold.

And the Gray, lifeless Light.

“Cave it in.”, I said.

Green and yellow-orange light, inside.

Hot.

Tropical .Jaoberto.

Getz.

Chase the chill from my toes.

Barometer stuck on Low, so relatively Painless…

More so from the Vacation…

I’ll hafta get more wood, soon.

…and no longer be nekkid.

Tropical.

Bitches Brew, Sessions.(thanks, Mike, wherever you r )

I require a Butler.

Salary = Cooking Advice.

The occasional exhalation of Wisdom, perhaps.

Qualifications include; a Secret Identity,(preferably “Masseuse”!)

Adept at choosing which Wood to bring in, to where.

Tolerance for Unorthodoxy…as well as Casual Nudity.

X-Mas Bonus, consisting of year round informal instruction in Philosophy, History, Science,Mythology, and their interactions, through Time.

Apply within…the Cave, down there…(it’s OK, he doesn’t bite).

Expenditure of wood; Justified.

Amfortas runs the Voodoo down…

A Bass Clarinet.

Tropical. Hot.

Jolly Roger/King Death, above the door to the Library.

Offset light.

Shadows make it innerestin…all my Junk.

Coffin-Table, [on wheels now!]

Pop’s Desk. Gagoo’s Stuff, everywhere.

I need more Pinter Stuff to strow about…hang from the rafters.

Put in crannies.

I have WW2 postcards from the Pacific, from Pop.

Nada, from Papaw.

Exile.

Hot.

Untextiled.

Stoned.Drunk.

Stinking of Incense and Ganjah.

Yet, Clean.

Timor Populi; Evigilet Bestia

2011-12-04T06:55:00.000-06:00

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/12/01/the-truth-about-the-national-defense-authorization-act/

“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”- Thomas Jefferson

The passage of this Bill, in the Senate, with a Veto-Proof Majority, sends one, glaring , message; The proverbial Powers That Be are terrified of what’s happening out beyond the walls, among the angry masses.

OWS, being leaderless, and unorganized( at least in conventional ways), is more successful than anyone thought possible. The usual smears of Faux News (dirty smelly hippie terrists) don’t seem to have any traction in a country that appears to be, Finally!, opening it’s collective eyes.

The rest of the Corporate Media (which , despite all evidence to the contrary, so many loud mouthed idiots continue to insist is “Liberal”), has tried to ignore the Movement, and the Issues it brings into the light….pretending that they can discern “no clear message”.

Most of the rest of Government, at least in Public, is sending mixed messages, at best…now expressing half-hearted support, now attempting to shore up the walls….

This Bill is a case in point of the latter…Levin is a Dem…and Rand Paul is Tea…yet the former has pushed through the most egregious parts of this Bill, while the latter has staunchly opposed it. The fact that it has such overwhelming Bipartisan support is shocking…they can get together on This?!

After all the BS and Rancor of the last 3 years, for the Senate to almost unanimously support such a Bill, while the “Mainstream Media” studiously ignores it, should be all the Warning We need….that 1, OWS is working…and 2, that the PTB have noticed, and are shaking in their penny loafers,

And 3, the one no one wants to see….They are getting ready for OWS to grow, and remain Un-Co-Opted, and Threaten the Power Structures that have ruled in this country for so long.

I will put on my Prophet Hat, now….and predict what We can look forward to, if OWS keeps on chugging….

(if it fizzles, it’ll be BAU)

There will be some spectacular “Terrist” event….I shudder to think how they’ll top 911….but that’s what’s in the cards…and I think “They” will have learned valuable lessons from that horrible event.

I predict that said Event will have a largeish something to do with the Web…especially “Social Media”…thus justifying, if not implementation of the “Kill Switch”, at least severe restrictions.

I reckon that it will be on many fronts, but won’t have much to do with aircraft.

It’ll be focused in the cities(too many “conservatives” in the hinterlands), but will encompass the margins, likely suburbia.

This time around, the Scapegoat will be something They can paint as “Liberal/Commie/Progressive/Left/Socialist/etc”. Muslims and Mexicans will likely have a supporting role…something to do with the “porous Border”…

I expect Violence(notice, Gooberment Watchers, I said “expect”…not “Promote”,lol)

Despite all the Conventional Wisdom of Americans as a hollow shell of a People, portrayed as weak, lethargic, and uncomprehending….I think(and Hope) that there are Lines that will not be crossed without the People fighting back.

Machine will hafta tread very carefully, here…so as to not show it’s hand too clearly, and thus lose whatever support is has among the People(Tea, likely, as crazy as that sounds)

An aside…We the People should hold onto Gandhian Nonviolence, for as long as possible….Machine is very strong, when it comes to violence…but only so long as the Fear and Respect and Faith of the Cops and Troops is maintained…this is Our Opening….to win the “hearts and minds” of those low level Enforcers…to Enlighten them…make clear to them that they should be on the side of the People, rather than the Machine.

I predict that things will get very Ugly….it will be our version of the Reign of Terror, with many unique differences(this ain’t Revolutionary France, after all….Power is largely diffuse, and there is no clear Versailles, or Bastille)

We must guard against the emergence of a Napoleon, or Robespierre, or Augustus, or Hitler. The People must remain a Headless Monster…impossible to kill, or coopt, in the usual fashion.

My Hope is that the coming paroxysm will be short-lived…and the last throes of the Machine…that remains to be seen…

It could go either way…to Panopticon Uber-Police State…..or to a complete Revolution in the Way We Do Things….it will be a Global Phenomenon, either way….but the world still looks to Us for guidance and inspiration….We have been disappointing in this regard for a long time….I Hope that We can rise to the occasion.

Pond Analogy. A Parable.

2011-11-23T05:25:00.000-06:00

So..I’ve been using this analogy for a long while , now…and don’t remember if it’s written down anywhere…but it feels so applicable, as an answer to all those paradigm-defenders(intentional or not) who keep asking,”what are the demands of OWS? I jest cain’t figger out what they want…”

The Pond is our Political and Economic Life-Space…and can be scaled up, from yer hometown, to the World.

The healthy Pond has layers and zones, diverse with a wide variety of Life Forms.

Sometimes, one segment gets out of whack….

We are experiencing one of these times.

There is an Algal Mat, floating on the surface of the Pond…sucking up a large portion of the available oxygen, and nutrients….and intercepting most of the sunlight. Below the mat, the water is nutrient-starved and dark and hypoxic. The Fish, and Copepods and Tadpoles, and whatnot (Us) are starting to notice the declining conditions. They are beginning to complain that the Algae is unfairly hogging all the good stuff, leaving too little left for the rest of the Pond Life.

Algal Mat insists that, not only is it a natural part of the Pond Ecosystem, it is the Pinnacle of Pond Evolution…the Shining Point to which that Evolution has been pointing. The Minnows counter that, yes, indeed, Algae is a part of the Pond Ecosystem, and is thus necessary…but, there is a Balance needed…otherwise, the Overabundance of Algae threatens to Kill the Pond.

The Copepods and Diatoms are beginning to agree….suggesting that, for the sake of the Overall Health of the Pond, the Algal Mat must scale back it’s operations…leave room for the rest.

Algal Mat continues to grow, repeating the mantra that “everything is fine” and if we would only allow the Market to work, then everyone could be Algae….that Pinnacle of Evolution.

OWS is the Diatoms, etc Waking up…and finding that Algae, while just fine at the margins of the Pond, has become detrimental to the Pond’s survival….and has already caused the quality of Life in the Pond to deteriorate. At some point, likely soon, the Minnows will discover that Algae can be Eaten….the Crawfish will join in, along with the rest…

Woe unto Algal Mats who forget their Proper Place.

political wilderness

2011-11-13T13:19:00.000-06:00

I had nothing to do, last night. Wife was at her second job, kids were with their Uncle. If I had had any money, I would’ve went for at least a couple of beers; nothing that grabbed my interest on Netflix, too painful to go Walkabout….(how I miss just walking around!)

Bored. …bored beyond boredom.

So I researched my latest thing;Occupy Austin….checked out the Forum, and the Video, and the “Livestream”….and found only a Profound Disappointment.

It is akin to what I felt when I finally moved there, to the “Liberal Enclave” of Texas, and found it Yuppified, a Shell of it’s former Strangeness. The Weirdness was on the run…cops chasing local color, like the “Drag Worms”….and the cops, themselves, more Stasi than even Houston…

New Ordinances, designed to harass the “Homeless”, and the aforementioned “Local Color”…all the Wonderful Strangeness had gone Underground. It was still there…one could smoke a joint with a perfect stranger at a bus stop…but it was furtive…and running through all of this, was the Nihilistic Urge….the Collective “Fuck It!”…reflected in the manner of Drug Use, even such formerly Peaceful and Thought Conducive things as Weed…now, were all about Escape….from responsibility, from the unacknowledged Pain of being Unwanted, from the Dead Endedness of jobs, and rent that was too high, and the Usurpation of the Streets and the clubs and the Art Scene, the Music Scene…it was all going Corporate, and “Respectable”…Commodified, Put into a Ledger.

The Livestream, and the Videos, on OA, showed this, clearly. There was no one there, save the few Conscientious Proles, and many disconnected youth, from skaters to Drag Worms….just looking for something to do…milling around, occasionally screaming about something, being harassed by cops for nothing.

Texas is Ground Zero for the Hyperindividualist, Rugged, Me,Aloneness that runs through the Mythos of America. Pioneers, the Alamo,Captains Call and McRae, fighting Indians, Oilmen, Ross Perot…all of that which Lil George tapped into so successfully.

Not the stuff of Movements, Marches and Rallies. The Disaffected and Disenchanted, in Texas, have 3 choices….Join the Mainstream, Disengage in whatever way possible…or go all Charles Whitman….just snap, in a paroxysm of Directionless Violence.

Here, there is no Tradition of Unions, or Political Initiative (Texas has never had the Initiative/Referendum/Recall apparatus extant in other places).Here, the cops have all the tools they need to stamp out and harass such things, in their Infancy. One needs a Permit for Everything. For all the stories and Legends about the Toughness of Texans, we are a cowed, timid people….doing what our masters say….taking what the Boss dishes out…

Add to this the fact that every Television in a Public place in the state is tuned to Fox News, and it presents a grim outlook for Change.

Texas has always been “Conservative”…even under 100 years of a Democratic Stranglehold on the Machinery of government.This was a holdover from the Reconstruction Democrats, who were all for Slavery, of course.

The Tradition of Texas Liberals, on the other hand, is one of Retreat and of Hiding…..from the German Freethinkers in the mid to late 1800’s, to the (now more Liberal) Democrats of today…..just hanging on, clutching at straws, attempting to keep the rest of us from slipping Backwards.

Where the “Conservatives” are well funded, plugged into giant Power Structures, and Corruption, the “Liberals” are Broke, and entirely Disillusioned. Scattered, Leaderless….without places to Hang and mingle and organize and formulate. Austin is the exception in this last point….there are many such places…but they are adrift, isolated…just like the “Liberals” they cater to. Efforts are made to Do Something….but it has no Energy behind it. Democratic County Infrastructure has a built in Hopelessness….even the True Believers don’t believe in it.

As far as Protests…I attended many, back in the day. 420, the Pro Pot Day…the main one I remember was the Protest against the Antihomeless Ordinances in Austin, in the early and mid-90’s.That, and Eyore’s Birthday, wherein all the Strange and Colorful Weirdoes came out to play drums. But it was all for naught….and we knew it, before we began….it would Change Nothing.

Why go to the trouble of acts of Civil Disobedience, get arrested, when it would only “Speak” to those who were on board, already? Better to lay low, be furtive and Underground….and wait for better days. Uninspired Apathy.

I intend to go to Thursday’s Rally for Refunding Education…regardless of all of this.

It is an expression, however ineffective, of Hope…and Non Right Wingers must find ways of getting together….even in tiny towns like Mason. We will remain isolated for the foreseeable future, but we shouldn’t isolate ourselves from each other, as well.

Here, Dems vanish after an election…even one as , arguably, Big as Obama’s. There was a party, that election night.(I didn’t know about it, till after) If there are ongoing Dem-like things going on, otherwise, I am unaware of them.

(I admit that I don’t get out much….and I Isolate Myself. I suffer from Agoraphobia…have for my whole life, even when I couldn’t put a name to it…and learned, long ago…to Drink to counter it. Our lack of Funds, and my Cripple-Hood certainly doesn’t help….but neither does the overwhelming impression, from before the advent of crushing poverty and lameness, that there’s No Where To Go…for Intelligence,Liberal Thought, and Enthusiasm for Both. This is a large part of my Reasons for opening my Café…to have a Place for such things. 911 ended that endeavor….and the Collective PTSD we endured after that day. I think, also, I was somewhat ahead of the curve in Identifying the 3 Enders(PO,Peak Econ,Climate), and putting together this Counternarrative that I’ve been working on….folks, even Dems, out here were not ready for such Radical Things. Perhaps Now….)

Safety Net By Kafka

2011-11-11T10:09:00.002-06:00

I’ve learned to take heed of Serendipity.

So when perusing the SSA/Disability Website, a few weeks ago..just to see what may have changed…I saw, and answered, a little questionnaire in the sidebar..and ten minutes later, someone calls to sign me up…I went with it.

I thought it was SSA/Dis, itself….but it was a Lawyer, from a Lawyer’s Group, affiliated(plugged into) the System.

Well and Good.

But I still have the perennial problem of “Not Enough Medical Records”.

Too, they sent a Form to my Doc…and he said he didn’t know…

So I went to the Doc, to help. The form was silly, really….When did the wreck happen? How can the Patient manage carrying 25# in a “work environment”?, etc etc

I was honest, as is my wont..I can carry a 50# sack of feed…once. Then I’m Toast. There wasn’t a box for that, of course…

Doc said I need to see the Orthopaedist….whom I haven’t seen in 3-4 years…and who told me that he “doesn’t do Disability, anymore”…

So I’m down to sending my DL to SSA in San Angelo, so they can make their copy(!), and hopefully, send it back….so I can apply for County Indigent, so I can find, and see an Orthopaedic Surgeon, so I can have some current Records, and perhaps Up to Date Imagery…so I can continue waiting on SSA/Disability to deny my “Claim”(which is a given), so I can “Dispute” the “Denial”, so they can Deny, again(also a given..it’s how it’s done…baked in, as it were), so I can Dispute, again, so that I can Wait around some more until the TV Judge can get to me,(I go to San Angelo, in the Federal Building, Judge is in Fort Worth)….This last, approximately 1 year from now….(!).

In the mean time, at some point, SSA/Dis will send me to Kerrville, to see their Bone Guy, who will Immediately see the Truth of my Complaint(again)...but which will be discarded, discounted and denied in it’s veracity,along with all other Medical “Evidence”, by the Mysterious Decision Makers, in D.C(again)…..who will insist on the Existence of a Theoretical Job, somewhere in the USA, including Extraterritorial Jurisdictions…that I am Perfect For….which will result in my Ultimate Denial.

Probably.

This will be the Third Time I’ve done this…..

Went through the whole mess that is the “Best Healthcare System in The World”. This time, aside from Rick Fucking Perry, I’ll not bother writing any elected Creatures…nothing but disappointment there….and Rick will just hear my Bitching…I expect No Help from that quarter….just a show, a flurry of Pretend Activity on Their Part…Sound and Fury, and all.

It’ll likely be Monday before I can get more Vicodin.

I’m out of Weed.(save for the “Graveyard”, where Roaches and the like are kept.(Waste not…))

I’ve expended what looks like it’s gonna be my 1 hour of relief from my last pill on getting wood in and taking care of my Chicks.(it’s still in the 30’s)

I keep hearing how Disability, and "Welfare", in General, is sooo Easy to get, whether one needs it , or not....How all the folks that are on it are a bunch of Moochers, who are living off "Real Amerrcan's" Taxes...all that.

Fine and Good.

Will someone Please hook me up?

Does Honesty count against me?

If it's so damned Easy, to game the System, then(to the tune of "over the rainbow")...Why, oh why, can't I?

Health Rant for November

2011-11-07T10:32:00.001-06:00

This Summer was the worst yet, in regards to Pain. There was little activity, as far as Fronts, and other Weather Changes are concerned…so I could safely discount that. Most of the more extreme Pain Episodes were directly related to things like Work, and Overextending myself. As an Indicator of my Worsening Condition, I look at what I got done this Summer, as opposed to last year, the year before, etc.

The Results of this Meta-Meta-Study in Anecdotal Medicine; I got Very Little Accomplished….and when I did, I paid for it with Pain and Agony and Virtual Confinement to my Bed….more than ever before.

Now, with Winter upon us, and the concomitant Fronts, I am in Hell.

No one in the Science Wing of Medicine wants to hear about Weather’s Influence on Joints, and the like. I guess the Money Making Potential is too shaky…

It is, regardless, Very Real to me, subjectively.

My little Hike, a coupla weeks ago, took me 4 days to “Get Over”…and that’s the thing;I never “Get Over” this. The Baseline is Moving.

What does Pain Free feel like?

I have become something of a Connoisseur of Pain…not something I aspired to. I have learned the Difference in Pain that is from that Cold Front, or that Hurricane in Cuba….as opposed to the Pain from going to Walmart(something of an Expedition), or (since I rarely darken their door) HEB….or the Zoo…or my Ill Advised Hike in Junction.

The Vicodin lessens the impact of the Activity-Related Pain…for about 2-3 hours, beginning an hour after I take one.(I’m limited to 3/day…but they only allow me 60/month…do the math…I hafta hoard,so I have enough to even sorta counter the Pain, which is then used as “Evidence” of “Addiction”.)

However, Vicodin appears to have No Impact on the Weather-Related Pain. The only thing I have found that helps that is a Full On Drunk….which I am trying to avoid…and which “Helps” so well that I get active and walk around when I shouldn’t…which makes for Incredible Pain the next day, in addition to the regular Hangover.

I manage to do the dishes and the laundry, most days. I cook dinner. There are 2 barstools in the Kitchen. And here lately, with Fall, I have had to “schedule” my bursts of Housewifery to that 2-3 hours of Non- Curl Up And Die Pain.

I have always been efficient in my Chores…at work or at home…I think about things…and then I’m able to Breeze Through, with out belaboring Process, or Materiel. This serves me Well, usually, in Getting Things Done around here. My #1 Function is Keeping this place Functional. So I do these little Bursts of Activity….then Retreat to the Damned Bed.

I don’t understand how the Government figures that this is in any way conducive to keeping a job…I wouldn’t hire me.

I would be in a wheelchair. ..(I have 2)…but this house, and the part of the world I’m in make that, really, much more trouble than it’s worth. When we go somewhere, like to Houston, where there is a good possibility for Museums, or other Walking, I am certain to bring a chair. I have tried it, in just ordinary daily life, and find that I end up Hurting Worse, due to the BS inherent in being in a Wheelchair….uneven ground, hills (Hill Country) and small doorways…not enough jack for sidewalks to the garden, etc…No Sidewalks to speak of in Mason…I need an Off Road Model, I guess…

When I really Need a Wheelchair, I find that I am too Damaged to manage one…get it in and out of the Truck,and so forth.

…and people ask me, “Where have you been? We never see you”

I am Shut In.

Then, to add to that weirdness of Public Relations/Perception…when I am Able to get out, go to the store, or whatever, people say, “Ya don’t look so bad, to me”…I say,”You shoulda seen me Yesterday”…

Maddening.

I have started the Disability Mess again…Third Time.

There was a widget on the SSA/DB page…just a little questionnaire…I filled it out, and 5 minutes later, a Lawyer called to sign me up.

So Now, I’m committed.

Same BS problems with my Case, as always; Not enough Medical Records…Not enough Documentation, Imaging, etc.(this story/excuse only holds till ya get in front of a Judge…or the TV image of His honor, see below)

Which is Crazy, from my point of view…I went to the Doc, with both he and I Knowing what was wrong, and what needed to be done…Hip/Ankle/Knee Replacement…which is beyond his skills, and way beyond my Financial Ability. Next Logical Step, we both agreed= Disability=>access to Healthcare=> Fix Me, So’s I can Work.

6 years (!) later, and I’m at square one.(Judge found, through no fault of his own(it’s the Law, you see), that I could conceivably have/do a Job that exists in American Samoa, at least in Theory. Ergo, I’m just Fine…and am trying to Pull One Over on The Government, become a Welfare King…)

I lost my SS Card, 20 years ago, in Bull Creek in Austin, along with the rest of my wallet. Haven’t needed a replacement, till now…to apply for the County Indigent Health Care…so I can Go To The Doctor, and shore up my Records.

SSA wanted me to send my Driver’s License…in the Mail…so they could copy it. I copied it for them, and sent the copy. I am, understandably leery of sending my only ID,1;in the Mails, who are notorious for Losing Things for Forty Years…and 2; into the Bowels of a Huge Beaurocracy, for the same, well deserved, reasons.

I need my DL, not only to drive, but to Vote(Fuckers)….and to, hopefully, avoid Imperial Entanglements…my name sounds foreign, and is spelled funny, and I’m strange, too Intelligent, and thus Suspicious, and just might need to be handed off to Homeland Security…So I’ll keep possession of my ID, thank you…but now I must “Pop in to my Local SSA Office”, in person….which involves a 200 mile round trip to San Angelo, where I have no other business…so they can Make a Copy.

….so I can apply for County Indigent, so that I can get Imagery, and Doctor’s Notes, so I can, maybe, convince(again) the Cubicle Dwellers that I am , Indeed!, Disabled, and in need of Health Care….despite that One, Theoretical Job, in US Virgin Islands, that might, in Theory, accommodate my Limitations….somehow.

Last 2 times I went through this Process, all of the Doctors, even the Kept Doc of the SSA, itself, said the same thing;”Yup, it’s Obvious…you’re Disabled, and need a lot of work…”

“Shoe In”.

“A Blind Person could see it…”

Would that SSA would Hire some blind folks…

Fear is the Mind Killer

2011-11-03T08:56:00.000-05:00

• I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
o Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear.
As has been belabored, for many years, I have had “issues” with Law Enforcement Officers (LEO’s) and what I shall charitably refer to here as “Rednecks”. I intend no disrespect to either party. They know who they are…and will know the Truth, herein, in their Heart of Hearts, whether they admit it (even to themselves), or not.

I have written extensively about where the Cop-Problem began…and alluded to the Redneck Problem. Suffice to say that these have been a kind of Leit-Motif in the Arc of my Life. It became habit to look over my shoulder...to be Aware of my surroundings…after all the best radar detector is one’s eyes. I have never understood the reaction of these groups to my presence…unless “Vibes” are real…which would be kinda cool, I guess.
The recent viral story of the Mason Gun Instructor had an unusual effect on me, though. In the video of him attempting to justify his Bigotry, I saw FEAR. FEAR, in the Hunter S Thompson-sense. FEAR that undoes whatever Rational Faculties the Fear-er otherwise possesses.
This FEAR, in retrospect (20/20.etc), I have detected in the eyes of many LEO’s over the years…when they want to search my car(“do you have any explosives? “,”Are there any needles that I’m gonna stick myself with?” “Is your trunk booby-trapped?”(Really, I’m not making this up!))
…When they have stopped me on the street…or pulled me over for whatever imaginary infraction….hand on Gun…body language saying “Coiled, Ready for Action!”.
It’s ridiculous, really. I am, after all, a skinny(well, not really anymore, lol), Crippled Hippie-Dude. It takes effort to get in and out of the truck, these days.
A glaring example of this unwarranted behaviour was at my Sister In Law’s Citizenship Ceremony. The 300 mile drive, and the hour wait in line to get in, had their effect. I could hardly stand up…and ,looking at the steep stairs up to the remaining seats, I knew I couldn’t manage that. The designated “Handicap Seats” were all taken…and the big lot of empty seats, right in front of me were “Reserved” for folks who never showed up. I took one of these latter…and here comes a LEO. “You can’t sit there”.
Not wanting confrontation, I said OK…and he went away. I had no other option, so I just stood there, leaning heavily on my cane, and the wall…it was the Lesser Evil. Here comes 2 LEO’s.” You hafta sit down.” I explained the situation, my disability, etc. Rather than finding a suitable place for me…rather than evicting from the obviously marked “Handicapped” seats the couple of obviously Non-Handicapped teenagers I could see, right there….they, instead, threatened me with arrest. Soon, there were several more LEO’s, encircling this potential Threat(Me). Hands on guns, their other arms outstretched in that classic Cop Pose, as if to say,”Now Now, We don’t want to hurt you”. I elected to leave, and go sit in the car. Welcome to America, Sis.

I used to attribute this insanity to my insistence on Long Hair….perhaps to my general Unkemptness. But, at times, I have tested this Hypothesis…Cut my hair, shaved, even wore a tie on a few occasions. Nope, that ain’t it.
There is just Something about me that LEO’s perceive as a Threat.
Rednecks, the same. That culture, of course, has a long, proud history of “Kicking Hippie’s Asses”…and are not in the least ashamed of such ignorant displays of violence.
I have been chased, pummeled, threatened with Murder…even spat upon (which is quite Ironic, given the mythology of Dirty Hippies spitting on returning Troops).
The (very) few times when I could be said to have “asked for it”…my “offense” was answering, truthfully, a question. Foremost in my mind is the American Legion guy who asked what I thought of G.BushII. This was right before the ’04 election, and I answered that I thought he was a War Criminal, and should be brought to the Hague, post haste. This guy, and his companions, laughed…and I went back to work.(this was at the café owned by that Gun Instructor, above, btw). I drank beer while closing up, and when I went to leave, Mr American Legion comes from the shadows and throttles me, has me by the throat, against the wall. To his credit, Gun Instructor saved me….and I left….with bruises around my neck.
What do these few, and many, many more incidents have in common?
Not my actions…which are usually confined to resignation or escape, where possible.
The Commonality is in the overwrought, completely unwarranted actions of those to whom I pose no legitimate Threat.
I will probably always have the Wariness, and the visceral Fight or flight Reaction to these two classes of people. But I no longer Fear them.
I pity them.
I represent a Light, I think, shining onto their Secret Justifications, their Unquestioned Assumptions, from which they construct their comfortable worldview. I hold myself above, and not subject to, their unwritten rules of behaviour and appearance. I challenge, by my existence, their Unthinking World, and all of it’s bullshit Proscriptions, Irrational “Morality”, it’s unjustified Hierarchy and Authoritarian Privilege.
They have no recourse to my intolerable “NO”. No reasonable counterargument. No Answer to my , unintentional, Challenge.
So, as they’ve been taught, by 5000 years of Authoritarian Hierarchical Social Arrangements, they attempt (often, I think, without thought) to eradicate the offending Irritant(ME).
What it must be like, in their tiny minds, to live in FEAR…of everything.
Muslims, Brown People, Black People, Queers, Drag Queens, Tree Huggers, Liberals, Commies, Socialists, Democrats, Po Folks,…how long is the list?
One of my Rescuees, a beautiful Hippie-Chick in Oregon had a run in with TSA in an airport…and gave them Love, in return for their Suspicion and Fear. That is something to strive for, I think.
I will likely always be very Wary of these folks…it would be foolish to be otherwise…but I will attempt to channel Ghandi,and Shauna, in the future.

Ignorance

2011-11-01T09:20:00.002-05:00

(from L. ignorantia "want of knowledge")

I called the local Library, to see about getting a book through the Interlibrary Loan System, and was informed that those programs, and much more, were being cut…literally, to the Bone. Some due diligence, and a few phone calls, quickly cured my Ignorance of this matter. The State Government, in Austin had indeed cut Library Funding by around 80%. While this is much better than the “proposed” 99%, it is still what can only be termed Catastrophic for the Public Library System, in Texas.

Add this to the already well known Disaster that is Public Education Funding, in Texas….as well as the actions of the State Board of Education, last year…and a pattern emerges.

“By their Fruits, shall ye know them,” said Jesus, in Matthew 7;16.

If these actions are the Fruits whereby we shall know the intentions of “Our” Elected Representatives, what manner of Tree are we seeing?

It would appear to me that the Republicans sorely dislike all things Public…that is no surprise for anyone who has paid the least attention these last 31 years. It seems that Education is the recipient of a special dislike.

Ignorant People are easier to Govern, one could say. This is entirely Cynical, on my part, I admit; but what other conclusion can one arrive at?

It is my opinion that We should not ensure even more Ignorance…that way lies Dark Ages. We should, rather, seek to cure what Ignorance there is.

But, they will say, We don’t have any money!...There is a Budget Crisis!

This is True, as far as it goes…but it only tells a portion of the story.

In 2006, then Comptroller Carol Keeton Strayhorn ran the numbers, to determine the likely effects of a proposed “Business Margins Tax”…Rick Perry’s Magic Elixir, to fix Our Budgetary Woes. The results?

(from the Washington Spectator, by Lou Dubose | September 1, 2011)” The comptroller warned that "no economic miracle will close the gap your plan creates. Even if every dollar of the current [2006] $8.2 billion surplus was poured into the plan, it would not cover the plan's cost for more than two years, 2007 and 2008. The gap is going to continue to grow year by year." The shortfall the bill created could only be closed by tax increases, the comptroller warned, "or massive cuts in essential public services — like public education."”

This current Budget Disaster is entirely Contrived….brought to You by Rick Perry, and his Cronies in Austin. They purposely Destroyed the Budget, so that the Republicans could gut all things Public…and, in the process, keep the Favor of large Corporations, and the Obscenely Wealthy.

Ignorance differs from Stupidity, in that there is a Cure for the former…Education. The latter, on the other hand, is usually terminal.

Thomas Jefferson said "I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power."

This is the same Jefferson whom the SBOE, in its mendacity, has removed from the Public School Curricula. Civilization, itself, depends on Our Education….and Education depends on the availability of Information…even, or especially, unpopular Information. The Republicans have shown their disdain for these Truths. Do not stand idly by while they work to promote Ignorance.

Edo Dives ,

Post-Structuralism, Post-Modernism, Post-Post-Modernism

2011-10-31T11:54:00.000-05:00

It appears to me, that many of the writers and thinkers who are lumped under these, largely nonsensical, monikers, are missing the Point.

While I find many of their Critiques of Modernism quite compelling, it feels, mostly, Reactionary. I, too, am coming around to reject the Universalism that was inherent in the Enlightenment Project…as I’ve said, the EP inherited this from the Religious Certainty that came before…and, it seems, in order to supplant that Unenlightened Order, it was felt, however unconsciously, that the ability to Universalise Everything was essential.

I disagree, for the most part.

While Natural Science, and Mathematics do, indeed, seem to fit well with Universalism (2+2=4, in all corners of the universe, or Gravity is the same, everywhere)…I think that it is hubristic to insist on this standpoint. We can suspect, but not Know what is happening on the “other side” of the Universe…we cannot even Know that there Is another “Side”.

In my Thinking on these matters, I keep coming up against this Wall of Unknowing, where most Philosophers begin Freaking Out, and making all manner of Assumptions, that they then disguise as “Analysis”. Although I find this terribly Dishonest, I do not think that it is Meant to be so…it’s part of the Way we do things…part of the “Structure” of our wrestling match with the Universe.

Man has never been comfortable with Not Knowing…and this has driven all of our exploits and triumphs, from the wheel, to Einstein. Every hundred years or so, someone stands up and announces that we , finally, Know It All! We Have It Figured Out! So, Relax!

Sometimes it’s Political, like Fukyama’s “Last Man” standing at the “End of History”…more often, it seems to be an unconscious Weariness with the Chase after Understanding….when someone happens upon a Theory that seems to satisfy whatever new discoveries, or events, had thrown everything once more into doubt, it is cheered as The Answer.

Unnoticed, and not always Willfully, is the presence of Assumptions.

Even Kant, with his Rigor, was subject to Assumptions.

The world is exceedingly Complex, after all.

Neitzsche, in my opinion, comes closest to getting at the Roots of it all, and leaving the World open for new discoveries and ideas.

But, that is just my Thinking on the matter…based on my own Assumptions, of course.

What gets me on to this, today, is further reading in relation to the last Post…about Alienation, Anomie, etc

Beyond all the Theories and Assumptions that we use to try and understand the World, a new thing has been born…perhaps it’s not all that new, just more obvious to those who are looking on…that is, the Fundamental Disconnect, between what We Believe, and What is Real.

I’m speaking, here, from my own Perspective, of Outsider, looking In.

It has become mostly clear to me that Western Civilisation is built upon a Foundation of Assumptions..that we all believe, implicitly…but that are, for the most part, False.

This is where Occupy# meets the Opposition. Dollar as Fetish…Free Speech Rights, meet the Storm Troopers…American Dream, meet the Nightmare.

Is it just to call all of our Assumptions, all of the Building Blocks of our Civilization, “Lies”?

In my experience, it would appear so…and this is compounded by the almost Universal Denialism that was extant, up until very recently.

These complaints, now all over Wall Street, and Main Street, even a year ago, would have been met with disdain and belittling. Faux News, et alia, are , indeed, conducting a smear campaign rooted in disdain for the tearing down of their Essential Assumptions….and the ad Hominem Belittling that has become their hallmark. Does this lend credence to my own Assumptions? I think so. The fact that Faux’s Meta-Critique of the “Movement” has been largely ignored, if not dismissed, by a seeming Majority, certainly makes it seem so.

It remains to be seen.

Notes(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-Structuralism)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_modernism)

Exile and Anomie

2011-10-31T10:31:00.000-05:00

I awoke kind of late, this morning, Mind already aswirl with Memory, and with a glittering suggestion of Insight, Context; like coins in a pool.

I may have been dreaming; I don’t know. It is not usual for me to remember Dreams.

Magnolia/Tomball…Cops…School/College…Her, and how those experiences fit in with all the rest.

I don’t mean to belabor…to wallow…

But it is important, to me, to get at these Roots.

(Ha!)

I am an Exile.

I have always been an Exile, even if I didn’t know it,….

I woke with the Memory of that Feeling…in Tomball, close to the end of my times, there. I was in the Van, at Spring Creek Park. I had a job, still…but I was soon to quit, and leave, forever. I had had a somewhat harrowing night of being chased, again. Hunted, one might say…for that is certainly what it felt like. This was during a relatively sober period. And I remember sitting there, thinking; why do they hate me so? Officer Stan had let me know that the rest of them were planning on ‘getting rid” of me…and I reeled as I digested this.Like all the rest of my involvement with cops, it seemed like such Overkill, such Surreal Behavior.

I had gotten their ‘attention’ by doing what I thought was the Right Thing…and Her Dad disagreed, and made me a Pariah. All my BS was a reaction to this. She was now long gone…and I had tried to overcome the Pariah-hood, doing the things I thought I was supposed to do. College, Job, attempts at Sobriety.

None of this mattered. I was still hunted.

It likely didn’t help that I was homeless, most of the time. I didn’t get along with Mom…so I avoided the Homestead…Dad was gone off, into his new life. I couldn’t afford an apartment…so it was the Van.

The only places that I felt welcome were the Beerjoints.

Playing the Blues.

Attempted Sobriety meant avoiding such places.

I had nowhere to go.

I avoided thinking about this conundrum, for a long, long time…this Unwantedness.

I was Naturally Rebellious, of course…always had been….and, as I’ve said, Undomesticated…Feral. Social Conventions eluded me. I was not a Christian, I was a (Wild) Genius, Pothead, Hippie.But all my old friends were gone …save GW.

I had already determined that I disliked College…I found the focus on “Career” a disappointment…as well as the lack of the Intellectual Bohemianism that I had expected.

All was Shallow.

So, it was with a certain reluctance that I made the move back to Huntsville, and University.

Though I tried to be serious about the Schooling, and the Band(what I really wanted to do, btw), the feeling of Pariah-hood, of Not Fitting, Not Belonging, followed me.

I was aloof, for my whole time , there.

These feelings of Separateness, coupled with the Boredom of the Classes, as well as the whole College/Frat Normality, led, inevitably, to Drinking.

In this, at least, I was not alone. Everybody was fucked up.

I’m meandering.

The point is my Not Fitting….My Exile…Ostracism…Alienation.

I can sit here, in my Library, 20 years later, and know that what was ‘wrong’ with me, at that time, was that I didn’t Belong…seemingly anywhere. But I still don’t know Why…I can point to all sorts of things, but they all fall apart with even a half-hearted application of Reason.

There was never enough money, of course…which, at the time felt something like betrayal…Me and my Brother had always expected, with good reason, that this time of our lives would be taken care of, financially…and it was not. There was barely enough Jack to get by…and few jobs, in this sleepy little hick-town.

The flying leap that was the Exodus to Austin was, on paper, due to this…and the Dean’s uncompromising attitude. Beneath all of that was the Hope that Austin, being the only Liberal Enclave in Texas, would prove to be the long sought Home. Potential Asylum….the only Asylum that could be hoped for in Texas, at least.

This Subtext I never spoke of.

And the disappointment that was found there was entirely Personal and Private.

The Hope was shattered.

My Folks had never given any indication that they understood what was happening with me, during all this time…from Mag/Tom to Hunstville, to Austin.

Dad’s aloofness, was compounded by his unawareness of Economics. It was no longer 1962. $50 wouldn’t get ya anything, in 1992 College Life.

Too, I know now, that he was dealing with his own Psychology…as was Mom,in a different way.Denial and Confusion. Searching, in their own unique ways for their own, personal asylum.

I understand, now….and I don’t blame them…for divorce, or any of the unintentional baggage they foisted on my Brother and I.

It did, however, play a large part in my own problems…my Roots had been severed. There was no Homestead to retreat to, any longer.

The Cop problem followed me.

I don’t know why I have always been a Cop Magnet. It doesn’t matter if I cut my hair, wear nice clothes, etc. There is something about me that bothers them, even from a distance.

Having a gun to one’s head, for no good reason, put there by a representative of Normalcy and Society…against whom there is no recourse…has an effect, I guess.

Cops and Rednecks give me the Willies, even now.

All of this, I figure, combines to shape who I am.

Rejection.

In Love, in Civil Society, in “Academia”(I should’ve gone to Brown, or somewhere…), even the perceived, and unintentional, Rejection by Family.

I made it worse, of course, by seeking solace in Drunkenness….and by going even further afield, as it were, in my Rebellion.

Even the approved drug of choice of my Civilisation made me even more of a Pariah.

Attempting to Deal with the Pain of Rejection brought greater Rejection.

I could never Grok why I was singled out, from all the other Drunks, for such Special Treatment.

It was with this Psycho-Social Dysfunction that I retreated to this Wilderness Outpost..far from everything. The Failure to Integrate Myself into a larger Community, while still maintaining my own, Personal , Integrity followed me here.

My years here, have seen me retreat even further, body and soul, from the world. The Loneliness grew oppressive…even after I met my wife.

My attempts to integrate into this Frontier Community have, largely, Failed.

I , very simply, have nothing in common, with anyone.

Too, the Paranoia engendered by the Cop Problem grew and flourished with my Exile….always expecting, despite the irrationality of it, the Knock at The Door…

On the Farm, I could see the cattle guard that was the only approach, some ½ mile up the dirt road. The few times a Sheriff’s Car ventured down that road…even if I had called them!...my heart skipped. I found myself looking over my shoulder, even way out there.

When we determined that we had a Prowler Problem…psychopathic Neighbor, sneaking…the Paranoia grew even worse. Even in that Far Place, I was Unwelcome.

So, after 15 years, when my Stepdad had his Psychological Break, and I was the Root of All Evil, it was no surprise, really.Why should I expect to Belong here, when I had never Belonged anywhere?

To Town…still Far from Civilisation…and I had a long, slow Breakdown of my own.

For better than 2 years, I’ve been rooting around in my Past…how I felt, what all happened…Confronting all this Pain and Bewilderment…Remembering, at last, where I came from, and what all contributed to the making of Me.

I am coming to terms with it all…accepting it. Even, it is to be hoped, Owning it.

I, to be honest, have few Regrets…that is not what all this is about.

If I blame anyone, it is the Civilisation, as a whole, in which I had the misfortune to find myself. The one Nation in the history of Mankind, where one was taught to expect, at the very least, a certain Tolerance for Strangeness…and I have found it entirely wanting.

The expectations I inherited from Family, from Schooling, from the Lies we tell ourselves about Who We Are…It is no wonder, at all.

I did my best, in the circumstances…and kept my own counsel.

There was, it turned out, no good, accurate, actionable advice to be had.

Camus said, “We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes, and our ravages. But our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to fight them in ourselves and in others.” … and I feel this, in my Bones.

I have been, at times, Overwhelmed by this Otherness…at other times, I Embraced it. Mostly, I have walked the fine line between…and this, I think, gives me a good grounding for the Identification of, and Indictment of, our Collective Failure to live up to our lofty Ideals. In this time of Public Rebellion… at where We are, and just how much We’ve been lied to… I am finding at last a Connection, however tentative, with Humanity.

In my time, I have been Ostracized…and while there have been many who seemed to relate to this…nowhere have I found someone that was willing to talk about, to Explore this phenomenon. I have perceived an unconscious devaluing of that part of my history and psychology that Feels this Ostracism so fiercely. These feelings, like my fish in the pond analogy, were always, at least tacitly, illegitimate….and that denial, that gave birth to the deligitimatization, is what appears to be falling away, right now…out in the wider world. Occupy Everything, indeed…where have you all been?

I’ve been hammering away at these things for years and years. Invalid Hurts. Devalued Feelings. The strange behaviour of Law Enforcement towards me… the American Mythology of Rugged Individualism, of “Responsibility”…this has been preached at us all, for a long time. The water we swim in is of no consequence…it is our own damned fault.

When I would articulate that this was almost entirely Bull Shit…on those few occasions, it was as if I had stripped naked in church and lit my hair on fire. Unthinkable.

This is turning into a time of Apocalypse…”Unveiling”…where the scales are falling from what looks like a majority’s eyes. I just got there first, it seems.

It took the excesses of the Bush Darkness…the Mythos on display, for all to see it’s Hollowness….and the Cynical Purchase of the Tea Party, along with their own insistence, beyond all Rational Credulity, that they were Genuine(!)…as well as(most importantly) the Breakdown of the Whole American Dream/Exceptionalism/ Wholesale Irrationality-Project that has been the Norm…for more than a fringe minority of my countrymen to finally Wake the Fuck Up….

Can I come Home, now?

Can I be an American, again?

May I rejoin Civilisation, now that so many of you have finally come around?

Home, now?H

Notes;( http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/study-guides/alienation-capitalist-society)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exile)

(http://therapeuticjustice.blogspot.com/2011/05/psychology-exile-or-liberation.htm)

(http://www.interinclusion.org/inspirations/freedom-to-question-part-one/)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_alienation)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunning)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anathema)

Barrio, at Night

2011-10-26T23:22:00.000-05:00

The Barrio is somewhat active , tonight.

Comings and goings and lurkings and waitings.

Folks in their backyard, I can see them from my Café.(A Table, out by the Street.)

Folks talking, having a cigarette on their front porch, in the dark…some, in the light.

Hookups.

For sex, drugs, plans.

And endless dogs.

Barking, whining, howling.

Dogs, I envision, of all shapes and sizes.

My geese are chuckling quietly.

Chortling, and every so often, letting out a trumpet-like hoot.

Ducks, muttering in the kiddie pool.

The chickens, at least, are silent.

I’m waiting on the cold front…

I’ve been Feeling it’s approach all day.

The stars, to the north and west are blurry….

Probably in Brady and Menard, by now.

Thirty-Five miles.

I know it’s close, because the Pain lessens as it passes.

It’ll return by morning.

It’s quiet.

Distant dogs, now.

Trucks on the highway/Main Street…braking to round the Square.

I wish I had better legs…

I’d like to ride the bike down there, to the Square.

There’s something about small, Texas towns, at night.

Just the suggestion of an Endlessness, beyond the lights at the center of town…

Of highways

Of the wide world, out there.

In the Dark.

Climbed a Mountain and I Turned Around

2011-10-23T04:11:00.000-05:00

I knew, from the first formulation of my Plan, just what the after-effects would be. The Boy’s, and Wife, were to go to a party in Junction, Texas…and I wanted Wilderness. So it was South Llano River State Park. The river, itself, was largely closed off, due to several hundred Wild Turkeys in residence…fucking and roosting. This was indicated right there on the web site’s map. The adjacent Buck Wildlife Management Area contained miles of trails…that I immediately intuited were beyond my reach…so the “Scenic Overlook”, it was.

From the parking lot, to the top, the paved park road went at a consistent 45 degrees, up and back, 1.2 miles. I was determined…but I was under no illusions.

I preemptively took an extra Vicodin, and a half a Magic Brownie….dropped off my Bunch, and went.

I met an interesting couple in the parking lot…and we fell in together for the trek. Ended up talking all manner of Esoterica…from Geology to the Sight that seems to run in my family and hers.(premonitions and Vibe-Reading,lol)

Halfway up, it was not my legs, but my lungs, that were questioning the Wisdom of this endeavor…my enforced idleness has led to heavy smoking…a vice I have hitherto accepted as the price of Sobriety, Sanity and Clearheadedness in enduring my Boredom…

Three Quarters of the way Up, I could feel my joints’ growing protest…but I was determined. I have learned to eschew breaks, when I have a like task to complete; whether it something in the Garden, or some necessary Walking that I must do…when I rest, after exertion, my Joints (all of them) tend to “Seize Up”…

As I didn’t desire to become a permanent resident, despite the rugged beauty of the place, I stopped only twice on the ascent; and only for a moment.

At the Top, 500’ or so above the Vale of the Llano, there was a serviceable and much welcome picnic table. I did stop there, for almost 30 minutes. My erstwhile companions came up after 10 minutes, or so.

It was quite Beautiful…late afternoon sunlight and shadow…the mountains (someone from, say, Colorado, would call them hills…but in Texas, they are Mountains…)…Mountain Cedar, Mesquite, Cactus, Agerita, Bear Grass, and a number of plants, especially Trees, that I could not Identify…the spring fed South Llano, far below, with Donkeys grazing, a few deer…(the only ‘word’ I know in Deer is “Run!”,lol…a sharp “Pffft!”)

The couple inadvertently restored my Hope for Humanity…him especially. He was interested in Everything…and was almost giddy that I am a Fount of Information…most folks are bored, or put off when I Hold Forth…and I do tend to wander widely…I go on and on about everything, save sports…

These folks were not Put Off…and, more, kept up…I should have exchanged emails addy’s, at least.

My Bones were beginning to signal that I should descend…I’m a sort of connoisseur of Pain, these days…

So down we went.

Going down is harder, for me, than going up…worse, when there are stairs…this is due to the Nature of my Damage…by the time we got to my truck, I could already confirm my much earlier foreknowledge that I would not be worth shooting…We parted…and I went to pick up my Bunch…and flew the 45 miles home. By the time we arrived, it was all I could do to get to the bed…and I slept fitfully…and awoke, as I predicted, at 2 am, when the Pain Meds wore off. I managed to finish my book (Ch. Freeman’s “381”), while coffee was making…and here I am, in the Library…More than a mile, yesterday…and , today, I find the 30 feet to get down here almost impossible. I knew I would pay dearly for the experience. It will be Meds, Brownies and Movies, today…and Pain.

But it was worth it…I haven’t done anything of the sort in almost 6 years…and the chance meeting of Kindred Spirits made it all the more worthwhile…

(and Stevie Nix is in me head…)

Tea, Coffee and Occupation

2011-10-20T09:17:00.000-05:00

It was entirely predictable, that the media and the Rabid Right would poo-pooh the growing Occupy the World Movement. The Tea People, the Insane Psychopathic Screamers on Faux News, and other bastions of the Right Leaning Media(like the entire AM dial…”Liberal Media”, my white ass!)…and Republican Politicians, who Fear the Pseudo-Movement they helped to create(Tea)…all have come out against the Occupiers. Cantor’s “Concern” about the “Mobs”…the innuendo and belittling off hand comments about Laziness, “Get a Job”, and all the rest….

It is somewhat comforting…encouraging…to see the FEAR in these Folks’ eyes.

The very Idea of a Leaderless, Manifesto-less Movement fills me with Hope that…just perhaps…there’s enough moxie left in the American People to curtail our headlong plunge into Pseudo Fascism/Pseudo Feudalism/Panopticon. It may be too late, but at least WE rose up a little, before the End.

As I’ve said before, the little town where I live has been in a Great Depression for at least 10 years. Anyone can see this, if they were to open their eyes. Wages are stagnant, “unemployment” is rampant…there is no Healthcare worth the name…and most folks scratch and scramble to get by. Yet, in the last 10-15 years, my county has sided with the architects of this malaise…(republicans)

I know, I know…we’re supposed to “Rise Above” the partisan divide, and all…I say Bullshit.

While Democrats have been spineless, supine and overly accommodating…the recent History of Us is quite clear: Republicans made this…Forget, for a moment, that the Republican Party opposed every bill, every policy, since 1900 that helped the poor, and the middle…I’m talking about the last 32 years, and especially, the last 12. The “Reagan Revolution”,and all that went with it, has been an abject Failure for everyone, save the much loathed 1%, and assorted dictators, Bankers, Hedgefund Managers, and other, sundry Parasitical Elites. All of them have done quite well, thank you…and it is somewhat heartening, even at this late hour, to see a Majority of my countrymen Correctly Identify the proper perpetrators of our collective pain.

For 35 years, we have believed the tripe, that it is all our fault that we are not wealthy…that it has nothing, whatever, to do with the way the System is Structured…that such laying of Blame is , somehow, a Copout, a Lazy Excuse, Unamerican.

How uplifting to see , on one of Maddow’s polls(I understand, about polling) that about ¾’s of Americans finally are willing to say that all of this is, indeed, Bullshit. The same old Piss On the Little Guy Policies are all the Right has to offer….an Utopian, entirely Fictional World, where “Hard Work and Sacrifice” will pay off…where You, Too Can be a Millionaire. Where we are a Nation of Laws, and that No one is above those Laws.

Turns out that there’s a lot of “People” who are above the Law…they are known as Corporations.

Ugh.

It’s going to take a lot more than folks camping out to change course, I’m afraid.

We have yet to see the full force of the Machine brought to bear…as much as I , a Liberal, abhor Violence…I predict that there will be Violence.It is likely the only Language that the Machine, and it’s Minions, understand. That said, such Violence will be, truly, Defensive…(I’ve got Billy Joel in my head, at the moment…”We didn’t start the fire…”) We didn’t declare War on “Them”; rather They, on Us…they just forgot, or neglected, or were too sneaky, to inform us of the Fact. Now is the Time, and we know the Time(Dean Moriarty)…Time for the Counterattack…for our generation’s “Once more, into the breach”…Au Deamus! Let Us Dare, to endeavor to make “Take Back America” something more than a bumpersticker. Our Country has been stolen, We know who the thieves are, and We know where they live.

Humans, arise.

Fragments From My Wild Years

2011-10-17T10:39:00.000-05:00

XTC in asphalt.

Heaven of steel and glass.

Freewayjamming all the way to

Downtown.

Bigtown.

And it was Mine.

Raw rubber roaring

On the psychedelic overpass.

Moonlight giving way to Streetlight.

…as we rolled down the exit ramp

Into the modern Shangri La.

(circa:1988,Tomball/Houston)

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????//////////////

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Once again, I’m alone.

Users and abusers and beerlights.

Play guitar in the bar

And hope it turns out alright.

Wanna find a place to hide.

Wanna jump in the car and ride away.

Wanna girl to tell it all to…

To make it go away.

Too many drinks and endless nights, on highways.

Far too many people.

I don’t even know their names;

The ones who live at the foot of the stage

And look at those who reside in the spotlight.

…and I think about the past six years,

People I’ve known, women I’ve fallen in Love with

Places I’ve been.

All gone.

Gone.

I’m in a different world, now.

It’s only inhabitant.

(3-11-91Little Lick’s Back Porch)

(this is after I’d come off the Road, licet insanire)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Dabs of paint on the tapestry of my Life.

…and it’s coffee psychosis for me

Trying to throw this hairshirt to the dogs

Savour the flavour of solace

A phoenix from the flame.

Birds sing and beasts howl

The wind growls, there’s not much time.

To remember the rhyme bfore it all comes down.

Don’t know how it all got so crazy

Can’t tell if I’ve lost my mind.

Guess it’s what sometimes happens

When you’re cut loose

From all those ties that bind.

And falling in love is easy

Yet it’s never what it seems.

You never know what to expect

(lacunae) dreams…

(circa 1991)

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

She didn’t call.

I waited for hours, but she didn’t call.

So I’ll leap into oblivion, with unfounded conclusions and get drunk

And bitch and carry on to the stars…

Been up on the roof.

I can hear the groaning Universe laugh and churn

And I’m a singular entity

In this dancing swirling cosmos,

Watching the indifferent moon bounce from behind the trees.

Silver light

Reflecting from the edges of distant clouds…

And the clouds, themselves…

Vaguely defined in the pseudolight,

Lending a wider perspective to my lofty view.

The crickets don’t care.

They plod on in their chaotic drone,

The very gears of the mighty throbbing cosmic machine

Creaking and pounding in the bosom of my long hot American night.

I’ll call her tomorrow.

(circa 1991, on the roof of the Birdhouse)

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Voices from the past send me plummeting from beyond the brink of remembrance. Blues bourbon beerjoint reality. Excuse me while I pass out on stage…one more for the road, Sam…T’anks.

Back to the van. Run to the hills.

Wake up with Heartless Hangover to singing birds sighing winds and sunlight that burns the brain and fills the mind with half images…atop Mt Bonnel, pello y perro. Where’s that takillya, Sam? Acid on the bayou, Dispair on the Mesa…

Purple cartoon wasps on my windshield, a year later.

Millions of them!

Love lost, what a cost.

This freedom’s a damned lonely business…

(circa 92, after wreck(AW))

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I’m leaving it all behind me, as I ask the road to dance.

Can’t hang around here anymore

Gotta leave while I have the chance.

And tho it’s been a hellova time,

I’ll leave, while the leavin’s good.

There’s better places to be down.

(circa 92?)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Worlds away;the one’s I’ve loved.

I’ve nothing to help me rise above

The pain and hell and gloom

In a world filled with the brightest colors

Greens browns sky blues

There’s dirt under my fingernails

Sand in my shoes.

Wandering walkabout

Hairy Peace Frog

Hip hop hopping down freedom’s lonely path

Not a dime to my name

Lacking in fame

Slipping into oblivion

Delirium

Heaven or hell

Just as well

Either way I’ll go in a bucket

Fields of buttercups

A new world woman

The poetess,

The barmaid

And gumby’s best friend.

The runaway lovechild who joined a marine

Blonde Czech beauty where are you, now?

All gone away

Body and spirit

(3-91 Birdhouse)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Send me another shot of Inspiration

I need to bask in the light of some new stimulus

Like a large lizard on a rock.

Give me a jigger, or two, of Love

Or, at least, lust.

I long to swim in the moonlit river of emotion, once again.

Float me a loan on a new soul

There be too many miles on this one.

(?)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Weekend in the Life

Been up for four days,

Purtymuch.

Mad dreamsong of blues and a short, potato-like woman

With bushels of soul.

Beer and bourbon…

And I’m clean and tan, tonight, on the floor

In front of the Gasjetheatbox, watching massive bugs bounce off walls.

I’m sluggish…

Time for a week off, if I can handle it.

A week to work in sunlight and garden grass

And regain some facsimile of inner peace…

I coasted in from highways,

Hungover and out of gas…back from four days

And nights of blues and booze and my wild,

Older woman friend,

Watching her soapopera dramas of boyfriends

And bourbon and puppypetting

Euphoric sadness.

How I care for her.

She keeps me just far enough out of trouble

In the actual Reality

Of bar beerjoint highway madness night

Neon warm thick ruddy light with smoke in great clouds

And champagne nightcaps and “where’s Darrel?” at 4 am steak and eggs.

Wild weird craziness, such is my world

Samsara ecstacy.

((circa 91)

Archetype and Symbol (or Amfortas, meet Parzifal.) (or, Wounded King, meet the Holy Fool)

2011-10-10T20:17:00.000-05:00

Applied Archaeology has never been my strong point, at least in practice. I am the Theorist, usually. Applied Archaeology is tedious, and sometimes you hafta come face to face with Bones, which are scary.

The whole Point of this latest exorcise has been to get to the Bottom, and clear it out. I have grown epically Tired of the Epic Sadness; tired of the Rut…especially since I didn’t even know what it was all about. The Subconscious is an amazing place.

Memories of Feelings that were too painful to bear, were subsumed, in a Deluge..of beer, wine and Forgetting.

I remember, now…when it began. The first, at the pool, at Her mom’s house, waiting on my ride to ‘finish’ with the object of my desire.

Second, in Nanduhirion…the Deep Woods behind Presley’s, on a hill, under a large oak, where the Camp was. Her, off in the woods, with that same buddy…me, by the Fire, drinking Mad Dog 20/20…these were the first times I drank to forget.

How many times did this situation repeat, with so many women?

It is as if She engraved “Sucker/Knight Errant” on my forehead.

Sigh.

I don’t ‘blame’ Her, I understand where She was, where She had come from…I think that Understanding, when combined with Betrayal, produced a kind of Break….the two could not be reconciled….and I spent the next 10 years(20?) trying to kill myself, however passively.

I was not, in any way, prepared for this stuff…I ‘learned’ about “Love,etc” from books…Arthur and Guinnyfar,or worse, the “Snows of Kilimanjaro”….( I intend to enlighten my boys, however I can) So, I had an actual Girlfriend,”P”…and I really loved her(still do)…she was good for me. We had a good time of it(I really don’t know how long…years)…but I ended it, badly.(I guess I knew, at some level , that I had fucked up…’cause I kept trying to get back w/ P…to no avail.)

The Romantic Annihilation swept me up…and, coupled with the whole Cops vs. Me-thing, the Outlaw/Pariah situation(which, again, started with Her, even if they were not Her doing!)…and I went looking for Errantry. At the time, I didn’t know what I was doing…, my Wild Years were the Natural Thing to Do…a Ritual Immolation….Cosmically Symbolic…and Totally Unconscious.

I bounced between Tomball, Magfuckingnolia and Huntsville for a while…then added Louisiana, and the Deep South…I lived in cars…then a Puke Green VW Van. But as far as I went, I was still in Orbit around Tomball. It flabbergasted me, that I couldn’t seem to leave…I didn’t know what I was looking for…there were no goals, aside from the next party, alone or with other fucked up folks..I played Blues…became the Bluesman…the Wild Man. Beerjoints, Barlights, Cops after me…I learned to sneak in and out of town…I knew all the back roads.I bathed in muddy creeks, camped in Wild Places…worked, just off and on…I, in retrospect, ceased to give a damn. Shallow ‘relationships’, even shallower ‘affairs’…

…Then I had the Wreck, and stopped for several months. This gave some musicians I had Jammed with a chance to nail me down (I couldn’t walk), and Birdhouse was formed. First Gigs were with me, the front man, in a wheelchair…and there was free beer! I started back to the local college, but it didn’t last…I descended, once again. Fights in the Band, and me running around looking for Something….it all fell apart, again. DWI, despondency, despair…

In that time, a long string of one night stands…and I fell in Love, at the drop of the skirt.

I must stress, I had no idea…indeed, I often wondered at the insanity of it all…the Motto, if there ever was one, was “Further!”, snatched from Ken Kesey, and Neil Cassady(Dean Moriarty)…

I ended up back in school …

Finally back in Huntsville, while the Road kept pulling me back…tugging me…saying,”Au Deamus!”…I (kinda) resisted, for a time. There were still many failed love affairs….and a lot of drink/drugs…but I was serious about school, for the only time in my life.I first lived with my brother, and we quickly formed a Band, Hot Wired Dumptrucks…did a lot of our own material (esp. my stuff)…and drank, drank, drank…until I crashed and burned, flew away to Greenbriar where P was living…just disappeared for a week or so.

I got an apartment…famous, now, for it’s Wall Art, and it’s Wild, Multicultural Strangeness….and Shroomsicles! I met K when she was living on my couch…along with J and Sh, who were also surfing… it was the same Rescuing a Damsel Business…I adopted her, as one would a Pet. I really loved her, and I think she really loved me…but it was always a weird mixture of Pet/Master, Crazy Person/ Sane Codependent….and , for once, I got to play the Sane One.

The school tried to fuck me with a fine print dildo, and I gave in, weary of the chase for something I didn’t really believe in(Degree…Career…). The Band was no more…and I was itching for Art, for an escape from Shitkicker University.

K fancied herself an artist, as well…(and I came to believe it)…so off we went. Sold the van for a Toyota, and went. The Cops were noticing me, too…so it was high time.

Austin Texas…after the Armadillo, and at the beginnings of it’s Yuppie Invasion. Timing is, indeed, everything.

My last paycheck from H-Ville bounced…but only after we had written checks for rent, groceries, electricity,…Catastrophic “Theft By Check”. We lost the apartment(and the Monster Set of Encyclopedia Britannica), and moved into a series of Roach Motels, and Public Parks. Then we moved in with “Ze Little Black Boy”, in Queerville, next to Jimmy the Queen…and then we got married.

I had been attempting, for these 2 years, to leave the Road behind. In Austin, I was trying to be respectable, keep a job…I had hoped that Austin would , finally, be the place I would Fit….that would Fit me. This was not to be. My Mom helped us buy a trailer house…cheaper than rent…then I got arrested. A $20 check had been overlooked, and the Law was after me, again. We were still reeling from the whole Bouncing Paycheck-thing, and the added costs of restitution, lawyer, fines…then the Parking Tickets…then the towing…then the repossession of the car….and on top of all that, K was a Stray Magnet…more aptitude even than me for attracting the Dregs and Flotsam of society. The trailer Park, and our house, became a waystation for whole herds of Freaks, Geeks and Drifters…basket cases, all. There were ordinary trailer trash, hippies, street people, a Roofer, Lost Children (all over 18, thankfully), Cab Mike, Couch Phil, and on and on. I was the Chairman to this Circus(legs), just watching the Crazy like it was a TV movie. Sex, Drugs, Drink, a Quiet Madness settled over me.

On the rare night when nothing was ‘happening’, we’d lie there with the windows open, and listen to the sound of sirens. K, being from Southern California, identified it as “Sweeps”…cops, going through neighborhoods, looking for Gangbangers.

For me, the Walls closed in. Agoraphobia, that I’ve suffered from ever since, set in. I was drinking, a lot…and both me and K were fucking around…

The opportunity came to move everything out to Mason…and, after a time of finagling, I won out, and we went.

K lasted a year, out here on the Fringes of the world. I was, as far as I knew then, Fully Off the Road. She couldn’t handle it…tried to start up the whole Trailer Park Scene…and I finally let her go. She likely still hates me for this.

Buddy M, who had been having his own psychological issues, had been staying with us for a while; working on the Farm…trying to repair his Soul with work and isolation. I was fully into my Bi Period…K didn’t seem to mind, as she had her share(and came out as a Lesbian, after the divorce!)..Buddy was my sometimes thing, and Just like with the whole Knight Errant Bit, I now…with hindsight…see this in context with all the rest. I was tired of wimmenfolk, and had always been open to ‘outside the box sexuality. So we attempted to “be Gay”…for about a month. I found that I couldn’t cuddle with someone with facial hair….I was only interested in one part of him.lol.And preferred Woman Parts. So he moved on…and I quickly found more Damsels to Rescue. More Drink, More Drugs, More Driving all night on Endless Highways…never enough money…and always too much Loneliness and Heartbreak.

RB was the last Damnsel…and she was a doozy. Used me up…Hooked me…I almost didn’t survive her….the Cops, the crazy violent boyfriends,the Wildness was over the top, even for me. (I had ‘forgotten’…more like Fully Suppressed…Her…She was lost, out there in the World , somewhere).

Then I met my Final Wife,(touch wood), and immediately realized she was different. T wasn’t so obviously Crazy, for one.(everyone has their demons).We’ve been married for nigh on 13 years, with 2 boys…and, although we will probably always be Po Folk, I am Happy, with her.

It hasn’t been easy. My Past, it seems, still had Invisible Hooks and Tentacles embedded in me. Since my Disability,(is it really 6+ years?...) I’ve been studying…Everything….including Psychology, especially Jung…and trying to Kill Off the Wild Years…the drink…(drugs were never my real problem…it was the drink)

….And I couldn’t.

There was something I was overlooking….we tried everything…

Then, a year ago, I found Her, online.

The trip to Dallas to meet Her…and especially the return trip…was an Epiphany in the Making….I told T the whole sordid tale…the Memory Blocks dissolved…and it was Epic. T said it was ‘like a movie’…

I have thought, just a little more often, about Her in the year since…and 2 weeks ago, the last bit of Wall crumbled in place. I remembered the betrayal, in Surround Sound, 3 D…with such Clarity…it was like being there, in CH’s car…or under the Oak in Nanduhirion…or in Wimberly with L…or a hundred other betrayals, or perceived betrayals…with a hundred other women…all of them made possible by Me…or at least my Subconscious.

I wrote it down, the Beginning…Principiis Obsta;Caveat Ruinam!

A Most Terrible Love….

And drank a gallon of peasant wine, 3 days later.

I listened to all the Forbidden Songs…Vomited my Psychosis all over the world wide web…and, hopefully for the last time, blew out the candle, put Her to Bed…

Heartless Hangover, and although I was ashamed of my Spectacle, I found that I could Remember Her…without the Pain I had carried around all this time, wondering what that Great Weight was…..

De Omnibus Dubitandum, and all… I cannot rest on a bed of Ivy…it is Habit, this Nihilistic Jekyll/Hyde-ism…and will take a lot more “Dealing” with…

But it feels like I may have found the Key.

I have hardly spoken(written..) to Her, since Dallas. Seems She’s worse than me at correspondence…I did manage to go off on Her, incoherently, in a drunken rage…to no good end…just a diffuse madness, directed in Her general direction, without telling Her why…or even knowing, myself…

You see…for all these years, I still don’t know if She ever really Knew how I felt, back then….Too, there was No Closure…She just disappeared….and then , so did I.

As I keep repeating, I do not Blame Her…I understand where She was At…somewhat, then; with Clarity, Now. All these years, when I would pause, and remember Her, think about Her, I would stop before I got to the Painful Parts…as I said, She was the voice in my head…mostly Figuratively, but sometimes in actual fact…

She became the Archetypal “Woman”, a female Elijah, that one habitually sets a place for…the Fons et Origo…and all the Pain and Anger that went with Her came out in Music, Poetry and the Highest Form of Art, the Arc of One’s Life…

My patient Wife know about all this…puts up with my seemingly endless self-psychoanalysis…her first reaction: “Go to Her”.

…Which is completely missing the Point!!!

If She showed up with a million bucks and a 100’ sailboat, I wouldn’t go.

What I am after, here, is Peace. I’d like to get over it, at long last.

I’m hopeful, in fact, that we, She and I, can keep in touch, Platonically. As far as it goes, I genuinely wish Her a Good Life…. It would be wrong of me to lay it all at Her feet.

This Exorcism is about Me…about getting at the Roots of my myriad Psychoses. It wasn’t what She did, after all…rather, it was how I saw it…which I admit, now, was utterly delusional. Although She could have been more clear, and not led me on, I understand. We were Kids…living in Fucked Up circumstances. It feels somewhat crazy to want to Forgive someone who, really, did no wrong…but there it is.

I must Forgive Her, so that I may Forgive myself.

A Most Terrible Love

2011-10-03T09:46:00.001-05:00

I first met Her on a hayride, out at my Grandad’s Farm. It was put on by the Catholic Church in Tomball…I was only even a member of the little “Youth Group” to please Grandad…She sat at the back, with me and a few others. I don’t remember any of them. I was, perhaps,15…16; She, a year younger. She held herself apart, aloof;not really trying to be with the others. I sensed a kindred spirit, in this, I guess…because I gravitated to Her. We ended up walking behind the hay trailer, as the sun went down…that white brilliance of the sky at twiglight, early Autumn. Pine trees along one side of the road, we walked along…side by side, then hand in hand. As we neared the house, where the hayride would end, and silly “nice” (church approved) games would ensue, I leaned over and kissed Her…my first time…and She responded. The embrace, the kiss has haunted me since. I don’t remember the games, or even what we talked about on our walk. All that I remember is the feeling…that I had found Her, quite by accident.

I didn’t see Her for years…in fact, I don’t recall the next time. It is all jumbled and melted together in my memory. Images and Feelings and Songs. She had become the stepsister to my best friend, who had moved to Tomball a few years before. I think that’s how we reconnected. At ML’s house, by Spring Creek, I was there, met her Dad(Evil!), ate fried chicken. While waiting for dinner,we listened to music in ML’s room, we had to keep the door open; JS, her dad, didn’t trust a closed door. Something about the Devil…

I remember at dinner, her Dad responded to my comment that she ate like a bird, with “actually, birds eat more than their body weight, every day…” .

All this , and more was somewhat surreal, and not just for me. We went down to the highway, after dinner…where 149 crossed Spring Creek. They were preparing to widen the bridge, and there were great piles of red dirt, all down into the creek hollow…we wandered around, talking about everything, the three of us. This is when She and I determined that we had met, and kissed, before. The Song that was in my head was “Sunset Grill”, by Don Henly….the first time I remember having a song playing in my mind…and the first of many songs, or snatches of song, that invoke Her.

I didn’t see her for a long while, till I moved to Tomball….and then , only rarely. She called me, and said she was at the church (across town), was playing hooky from the classes, etc…and could I come meet her. I walked the 2 miles down the tracks to the Church. She was lurking around the swings and things…We hung out and talked, and even held hands. I wanted a kiss, but she ‘wasn’t in the mood’. I remember it was in Fall of the year, probably November, as the leaves were all gone. The clouds, again at twilight, were dark, Stratus, glowering. We talked about hopping a freight….about how She was trapped, between her insane Dad, and her insane Mom….I told her I was ready, but I guess she wasn’t. It would not be the last time that this abortive escape scenario would play out. Time came, her dad arrived, and I faded into the brush along the tracks for the long walk home.

The next couple of years, I was around her often. Band, the Busrides, the driving around. The parties. We talked for hours on the phone; but she wouldn’t be as close as I wanted. I was “like a brother”, and her best friend. . (we talked about sex, a lot. All her escapades, trysts and affairs…she encouraged phone-sex, of all things, quite often…it had always been a strange relationship)

Her Dad had one of his crazy periods, and she moved back with her Mom, and to another school district. She would call me, and sneak out her window…I would come, every time…stealing my dad’s jeep…and off we’d go. Just driving…and drinking, but not really to excess…once, again, in the Fall, we went to Galveston. 100 miles. Crossing over the ship channel bridge, windows down, Bruce Hornsby and the Range were on the radio…”every little kiss”…she looked at me, and asked if we could run away together. I said yes, but after tonight. This sparked a change in her…a distancing…and I knew I had said the wrong thing. We finally got to Stewart beach, and got out, walked. It was cold and windy…salt spray stinging..her hair whipping around. She walked off, saying she wanted to be alone. I could see her, in the yellow light of the sodium lamps, staring out to sea…and my heart just about broke. When she came back, I could see that she was crying…said she wanted to get away so badly..crazy parents, and all.

Later on she called me again, said she wanted to drive around, so I went to get her. I didn’t realize that she was so drunk till later…she wheedled me into driving past band practice…to look for “Joel”, the tuba guy who had dumped her…and brought on the almost suicidal binge she was on. Screwdrivers. About a minute later, she puked all over me and the jeep. I kept driving, holding her head out the window, trying to get her home (her mom was out of town). We arrived, and I carried her in, put her on her bed, and tried to keep her from asphyxiating…puke, everywhere. She was passed out, by now.

I had to do something. I got her undressed, save for her panties…and I must insist, I was the picture of a gentleman; I did not “take advantage”…I somehow got her into the shower, and cleaned up…and back to her bed. Everything was calm, now…the immediate danger was over…although I watched her closely. I rummaged around and found the number to her best friend…who rushed over, and helped me with her and with the cleaning.

She asked later if I had “copped a feel” and I said, truthfully, that no, that would have been unethical (I am a somewhat rare bird)…but that I got a really good look. She seemed to indicate that this was my reward for chivalry, and pecked me on the cheek.

Soon after, her mom was gone, again…and CH and me were over there, swimming, and drinking her mom’s bud. Ch was “invited” into the house…and I was not. I was already buzzed…and that’s the day I started smoking. CH had Marlborough lites in his ancient station wagon. I chugged beers and smoked till I was sick…and made a fool of myself, when they were “done”. I said inopportune and hurtful things and CH got me out of there.

Soon after,a week?... I got a call, from a pay phone by her mom’s. She had run away, and was on the side of the road….band bag full of shoes, but no underwear. I, of course, went to rescue her.It was, by now, my Function. We went to ground at CH’s apartment, ML was there (his mom and JS had divorced), and we tried to figger out what to do. I wanted to collect her and go…go find a ship to stow away on…anything. ML’s mom called, said that JS had ‘called the dogs’. Turned out that JS’s brother was police chief! They were after me and her, and I was to be charged with statutory rape…for which there is no real defense….and Kidnapping. To ML’s mom’s we went, the three of us.It was safe haven. We spent most of the night there, while cops circled, and ML’s mom talked to JS on the phone. I got a reprieve, I could go…but I was not to contact her, ever.(this incident got me on the radar of the cops, for Tomball, Magnolia, Montgomery and Northern Harris Counties. When I helped Zig’s girlfriend, later, it just added to it. I was , and remain, a Pariah)

I quit school, in april of my senior year… too much bullshit…the rules, the boredom, the punitive dhalls, and iss.(I never went to dhall, and ended my HS career with a record 165 hours due of dhall, as well as 3 weeks due of iss, if I hoped to graduate.) She was back living with her dad…but the school knew…everyone seemed to know. I had my first girlfriend, P, by this time. We got an apartment, with CR(yet another waif in need of rescue), and settled into a kind of groove. The first time I did acid, P didn’t know…and I spent a horny, crazy night next to her. Next day, I skipped work, as I was still tripping, a little. P went on into her job…and She called me. I told her about the acid, and we talked about many things. Sex , as was usual, came up I asserted that it wasn’t fair, her fucking everything that moved, except me…who had always been there for her. By this time , she was engaged to an army nut, who had daddy’s approval. She said that if I came over, she’d fellate me…but I couldn’t have anything else, because her fiancée would smell it.(I intuited that he made an “inspection” whenever he picked her up). Of course, I went right over. She wanted a bag of weed for this service; and I promised her one.(I betrayed her, in that, I guess….as it was dirt weed). I was too nervous to consummate, and settled for holding Her nakedness close to me for a while. P never knew about this (sorry,P).

Soon after, She was gone. Married to the army dude, living on the other side of Houston….no one would tell me how to contact her. I lost track, until a few years later…in the middle of my Wild Years…I remember crossing the , then brand new beltway 8 bridge…the high bridge… over the ship channel, in the fog…me and Sam, my now long deceased Road Buddy…somehow, I had found her phone number, in Deer Park. We showed up after midnight, drunk, just in from Lousyanna…and I was bitter, drunk and mean.

That’s all I remember of that, our last encounter…and in the years since, I have thought of Her, often…wondering where in the wide world She was…no one would tell me…and, on occasion, I would pause…when the moon was right, or the dawn, or the sunset…the smell of the air…and remember….longing…grasping at memories, wanting to return, and try again…

I found her on Facebook…last year...and took my wife and kids to Dallas to meet her. She’s living in London, now….when she’s not traveling the world with her job…

This was a hard meeting, for me. I love my wife…but there will always be that something….that feeling of something missed, let slip…I can’t listen to music, unless I’m drunk…because so many songs remind me of Her. Almost all the girls I’ve bedded and fell in love with have been Her surrogates. The pattern of my love affairs follows that unrequitedness, that quixotic tilting, that was set in stone with Her. I see that certain quality of light in the Autumn sky, wind in the dry grass on a hillside, and I think of Her…almost unconsciously, now…20 years later.

I am haunted by an undefined longing, and shapes in the fog of my memory….for my life is filled with mists…so much drink and drugs and Wildness…and how much of this was to suppress this longing?

The songs I wrote, although they were ‘dedicated’ to P, or Margie or Janet, were to Her…the mental interlocutor I habitually carry around in my mind, discussing the world…has been Her….or her avatar…

The only memories that are absolutely clear…unfogged…are those with Her…I remember those times as if they were this morning.

I am writing this for my own reasons…as a sort of exorcism. There is no malice in my intentions, only catharsis. For nigh on 25 years She has been a part of my unconscious mind…and now that I have found her…I must let Her go, at last. This terrible Love, that I have borne for what seems like centuries, I must lay down. Believe me, that I wish Her nothing but happiness….and always have…even when I hated Her for not choosing me…

When the pain I felt was so overwhelming that I thought that I must die….after 25 years, I can finally speak and write and think…and not fall out of the world.

9292011 2am

2011-09-29T04:07:00.000-05:00

I set my alarm (Scotland, the Brave) for 4AM…but woke up at 2.

Thursday is my watering day, Midnight till 9AM; and 7pm to Midnight.

Drought…restrictions.

I made the Coffee and set to….keeping eyes peeled for the Possum I’ve been after…and, who is after the 3 Lil Red Roosters that disdain proper shelter.

An hour at a time…then moving the sprinkler. By Dawn, I’ll have the Wild Lot soaked. The Rye is sprouting.

Whisper of deep green in this brown land.

To the Café…(a Blue Table, and some chairs, out by the road.Where I drink Tea in the evenings)

Barrio is quiet, save for the dogs, near and far….and the 3 wayward Roosters.

I have disturbed them.

On Sunday mornings (my other watering day), there are Cattle to be heard…all night…from the Stockyards, a mile to the east.

They keep the dogs up and howling…but, tonight, quiet.

The Barrio begins to stir, in another hour.

Trucks.

The rest of the Roosters…mine, and many others…will tune up around then.

Crowing and flapping and jostling.

The Geese are already muttering…they know I’m about.

Ducks can be heard, as well…complaining softly in their hide.

I do most of my work, on these mornings, in the dark.

One of my Psychological Issues with Town Life is feeling Watched.

I have almost always been in the country…and, reason be damned, I cannot shake the feeling. 2 years of observation and insomnia haven’t cured me.

It is partly a likely holdover from the Prowler Problem, out at Mom’s.

One never knew when He would be lurking….and I still have the urge to go about armed.

Unnecessary, now…especially since the Lollo Affair sent that dude into hiding.

Probably a touch of PTSD…to go with my other “issues”.

Too, in the country, I’d likely be Nekkid for this work.Ha!

I’ll spend the rest of the day napping, and Willing the Rye to Grow….perhaps I can be Painless enough to do the Pantry. Inventory, et cetera.

I used to love the Fall of the year…now, the Fronts lay me out.

I can smell it…the change in the season…a mere suggestion of Chill, although it’s almost 80 degrees.

A “mild” Winter is forecast.

And Summer’s stars are gone, by this time of the morning.

Regarding the Mayor’s mention of re-doing the Sewer Plant.( a letter to city and editor)

2011-09-23T08:05:00.001-05:00

Everything Poops!

It may not be pleasant to think about, but there it is.

Most things that Poop have Micro-Flora and -Fauna, in their Gut, that generate Methane.

The city and county, in recent years, have been fined for venting Methane to the atmosphere…from the landfill, at least. It is a certainty that the aging Sewer Plant Vents Methane, as well.

“Natural Gas” is a marketing term, invented by energy companies, decades ago, in order to sell Fossil Methane. Seems everyone knew , at the time, that Methane = Sewer Gas….and our aversion to the products of Bodily Functions meant that even the Fossil Gas was a hard sell.

Now , we are in an Energy Crisis. Light Sweet Crude Oil is hard to find, the “low hanging fruit” having been extracted, long ago. This is the reason for the mad scramble for “alternatives”…such as Oil Sands, Tar Sands, Deep Water Drilling, etc. All of these, and more, have what is called a Negative EROEI (energy return on energy invested); it costs more energy to extract and make useable these resources, than is contained in the resources, themselves. Enormous amounts of Fresh Water, and a whole lot of “Natural Gas”(the Fossil Kind) are also required to Process these resources into a useable form.

It is, in short, Folly…and an act of desperation.

Fossil Fuels are Finite….there is only so much of them there…and the world has used them wantonly.

Nothing, really, can replace Oil, barrel for barrel. It is energy dense, and transportable. “Natural Gas” is neither. It is expensive and dangerous to transport it…and at the earliest opportunity (a pinhole leak), it escapes to the atmosphere…where it is a remarkably efficient Greenhouse Gas.

A viable alternative to at least some of these problems is sewer gas….Methane. The Landfill, the Feedlots (that are, luckily, right next door) and the Sewer Plant. All that is needed is to Capture that Methane, run it through a glorified Charcoal Filter, and Viola! Energy for Mason!

Currently, our Electricity comes from far away…through Power Lines…

Power Lines “Lose” around 40% of what’s Generated, in Transmission. That Electricity is simply “vented”…much like our Methane…in the form of an Electromagnetic Field.

What a Boon for Mason, if we could actually use the Waste we Generate to heat and cool our homes…and to run our gadgets. It is worth looking into, since our Elected Officials are contemplating a Major Overhaul to the current infrastructure.

I urge you all to educate yourselves on this matter….and to then tell your Council-People and Commissioners about it.

I have sent this to Mayor Brent, along with a smattering of links…which Gerry can print if he wants to.

Thank You, Josef

http://www.pewclimate.org/technology/factsheet/anaerobic-digesters

http://www.habmigern2003.info/biogas/methane-digester.html

http://www.mrec.org/pubs/Anaerobic_Report.pdf

http://www.water.siemens.com/en/products/sludge_biosolids_processing/digesters/pages/default.aspx?stc=wwiis250060

http://www.eisenmann.us.com/biogas-gw.php?gclid=CLPwuuiqs6sCFcWd7QodLSpexg

A Brief History of the Politics of Amfortas.

2011-09-17T03:55:00.000-05:00

I had considered myself a Libertarian, for as long as I had been aware of such distinctions. However, I remember, hazily, being on Jimmy Carter’s side, during his debates with Reagan…This was in 5^th grade, and the teacher Mrs. Biggers, was not only mean and prone to screaming, she was decidedly in St Ronny’s corner. I’m certain that this had some influence. My folks were all Democrats…and their folks, and so on…but Politics was another of those things that was kept hidden from my brother and I. We were given a questionnaire, in the Civics semester, about Political Leanings. I came out very Left…but it felt too simplistic, to me.

I remember, during the ’88 election feeling that I had to make a choice, as it was my first time being eligible to vote in a Presidential contest. I went with Ron Paul…largely due to the Libertarian’s reputation as Pro-Marijuana…but also as an expression of my congenital Rebellion.. At the time, I paid little attention to politics, let alone economics…I wanted more Freedom! ….and was becoming more aware of it’s lack, in my daily life. I knew I didn’t like Republicans…Reagan and Daddy Bush always felt somewhat dishonest, to me…like there was something about them, behind the façade, that was fundamentally Wrong. I eschewed politics for a long time after that…I had other things to think about.

The wars, especially the Drug War, didn’t set well with me. There was always a feeling of Repression…largely undefined. What little attention I paid to politics, was mostly like this…a gut feeling. I liked Hightower..and Anne Richards…I liked Ross Perot…Clinton was OK, mostly because his name was not Bush.

It wasn’t till I moved to Austin that I became aware, politically. The intransigence of the Republicans, the self righteous BS of Newt, and company…they were associated with the Rabid People, in my mind…the Bombing in Oklahoma was perpetrated by one of theirs…and I leaned Left.

I knew I was Not Republican…and Democrats seemed, even then, to be little better. Dems made noises that I liked, but didn’t follow through. I didn’t make the distinction, at the time, but I was a Left Libertarian…the influence of Jefferson and the Beats, and the whole Hippy Milieu meant that I really didn’t fit, anywhere. I hated the idea of War..the Wars in my time felt dishonest…not like WW2…not Just Wars…more about Business, with a Crusader Patina, that wouldn’t become overt, till much later. I sympathized with Clinton, during the scandals. He was getting railroaded…that was obvious. The economy, at the time, while better than it is now, didn’t have any justice to it. Clinton , and the Dems, were the only ones who said anything even remotely connected to the economic realities I was beginning to understand….but my perception was that they were full of shit, too…just not as much so, as the Republicans. The Republicans were an obvious opponent. Everything about them said to me,”we’re after you!”. The abortion mess, never mattered to me, really…until high school, when I helped a friend get one. That issue was the only thing about Ron Paul I didn’t like. Later, I would add the Pro Corporate stance of the Libertarians to my list of differences….but that was later. I was nacently anti Government…largely due to the whole Waco/Ruby Ridge thing…and the Drug War.

In Austin, I knew a lot of homeless people, young and old…lot of Vietnam Vets, living out of dumpsters…at the time, there began a crusade against the “blight” of homeless folks in Austin. My first Protest was against this. (wherein I drank beer with Molly Ivins, on Congress ave.) I was becoming politically aware, and active…and keenly aware of the injustices of our Economic System.

George Bush 2 was Governor…and was obviously a fool, and a Corporate Lackey, as well as being plugged into the whole conspiracy theorist’s nightmare of CIA/MKULtra, and other, assorted Evils…of course, at the time, I was certainly aware that Clinton was , too. The Richards/Hightower-Types were few and far between….and that’s where my sympathies lay. Too, I was married into the Black Sheep side of the Bush Crime Family…my wife’s paternal granddad was also George Bush, he was a cousin to the Kenebunkport Bushes…and hated them with a passion. Daddy Bush showed up, with the Secret Service at Grandma’s funeral…and there were stories of how the White Sheep Faction had stolen the family’s west Texas oil wealth.

During this time, Economic considerations drove me to Mason….and I , again, eschewed Politics. When Lil George ran for President, I thought, at worst, he would be a one-termer, and that whatever Dem came after would likely have some cleaning up to do…

I was more aware of Economics, in those days…enough to know that Corporate America was my likely nemesis…things like Nafta meant that the New Democrats weren’t the answer…and Republicans, of whatever stripe, were obviously in the corporate Pocket…so I was libertarian, still…even becoming Mason County Chair of the Libertarian Party(wholly ineffective)…the L’s own fellation of Corporations, as some kind of high expression of Freedom, finally drove me out. There seemed to be no party for me, save, perhaps, the greens.

Then 911, and the Nazi-like rhetoric, the militaristic chest thumping…the anti-intellectual nationalism…the sudden lurch to the Right…

I became a Reluctant Democrat.(the stolen election of 2000 played a large part, too). Evil had a face…and it wasn’t Al Quaida…it was Dick, Don and Lil George!

Into a Research Frenzy I went…one that I am just now wrapping up. I weighed all the various “Conspiracy Theories”…noted the surreality of Conventional Wisdom…delved into the History of the Right and Left…the Philosophy of it all. ..and sided with Gore and the Dems, as the last best hope for Freedom and a continuation of the Enlightenment.

I spent years reading the federal Register…piecing together a counter-narrative, that included the worst crimes of our country…

Economics and Political Philosophy…what I knew of the Bush Crime Family…”Conspiracy” as shorthand for “Crazy”, even though many of the “Theories” fit reality so much better than the Official Narrative. The Propaganda Onslaught, and the Love It Or leave It Nationalism, the Das Heimat Rhetoric…and the Dems half-hearted opposition to it all…I became a Lesser Evil Dem.

The Neocons were matched by the Neolibs as two sides of the same Evil. Corporate Feudalism, Friendly Fascism,and America,Inc.

A distinction had to be made, between the “Good” Dems, and the Bad. While I still distrusted Big Gov, I came to realize that it was likely all that stood between us and the Machine…a sad realization! The Language was all wrong! It was the language, the Meme-Space of the Right that had clouded everything(Yoda)…making honest political distinction impossible.

And here we are! Stuck in Surreal-Topia…Up is down, etc. The Corporate Machine has gone Global (long ago, it turns out…and with bipartisan support)…and there is nothing standing in the way of Eternal Fascism. Peak Oil is Real, and lurks behind all of this. The Conventional Wisdom is hopelessly marred, and the Framework I worked so hard to construct appears to be a lot closer to the Reality of things…but there is too much mud and confusion…too much knee-jerk Patriotism…and far too little Understanding.

I will continue to vote Dem…the alternative is too terrible….but I have little hope that Civilisation can be saved. We must go into the Burning Times,the Fall of American Empire…and likely the End of our Global Civilisation…I see nothing else that can possibly stop the Panopticon, the Dystopian Hell World that is rapidly being constructed.

My Task, as I see it, is…on the one hand…to “Rage against the dying of the Light”…and on the other, to Hunker Down…to try and preserve some ember of the best of Us….Secular Monasticism…a little Life Boat of Enlightenment, in a Sea of Darkness.

Re; Sand Mine.

2011-09-16T03:49:00.000-05:00

http://www.masoncountynews.com/news/article/45459

What jumped out at me from Gerry’s article on the coming Sand Mine, in Katemcy, was the revelation that this “industry” is almost totally Unregulated.

Here is the much vaunted Free Market, at work. This Corporate Person has bought up all that land, and are Free to do as they will….no matter what the neighbors think. I noted the same Inconsistency, if not outright Hypocrisy, in the recent hubbub over Power Lines. Thankfully, in that fight, the Machinery of government was successfully brought to bear, for now. There appears to be no such recourse in this fight, however.

That this is true, that Government has little say in the operations of this Corporate Person, is wholly consistent with the Free Market Fundamentalism, so popular on the Right.

How often have we heard about “Freeing Job Creators” from “Government Interference”?

How often has Mr Hemphill, and many others, railed against those Damned Treehuggers and Overbearing Regulators?

Here is the result; a Corporate Person has bought land, and will soon degrade our Common Air, Pump an Incredible amount of our Common Water, clog our Common Roads with Trucks…and there ain’t a thing we can do about it.

Welcome to the Free Market you all have been pining for!

I cannot effectively water a garden, at this time, due to the drought, and the resultant water restrictions; and Green grass is almost nonexistent in Mason. Yet this “Person” can pump away, as there is , it seems, no one to stop them.

This coming Blight can be laid squarely at the feet of those who have hollered and screamed about “Big Government”, and largely succeeded in shrinking that government.

You have no one to blame, but yourselves.

Your votes matter…in the future, may I suggest that you consider the effects of those votes, and whether they are really in your interest.

my (unpublished) last word on the Sharia Hysteria in Mason

2011-09-16T03:47:00.001-05:00

Hominem Unius Libri Timeo.(St. Th. Aquinus)

There often comes a time when one must leave intransigent opponents to themselves. Some folks just cannot be swayed from their habitual beliefs, no matter the evidence, or reasoned arguments. The sky will still appear Green, to them.

This is their Right. This is America, after all…where we are Free to believe all manner of Nonsense…and to promote those beliefs to the Public, at large.

I will defend that Right, however odious those beliefs seem to me, personally. As with the rest of the catalog of our Rights, they are meaningless unless afforded to the most heinous and unpopular among us. However, there is no Duty to give believers in a Flat Earth a seat at the table when deciding the Geography Curriculum. Indeed, Reason would seem to lean more towards keeping Flat Earthers as far away from Geography Instruction as possible. One’s Right to Speak, and to have and promote one’s Opinion can in no way be construed as including the Right to Force one’s Speech and Opinions on others, let alone on the General Public. Therefore, I will address the General Public, rather than anyone specific.

It is somewhat Pointless to argue with certain segments of our Society regarding their (Unfounded) beliefs that the USA is a Christian Nation. That is their Right, and is to be defended. I fear, however, that by letting this small, but very vocal, Minority have their way in small things, we set ourselves up for larger things, down the road.

In the last couple of years, Believers in the Far Right Version of Christianity have managed to insinuate themselves into various positions where they can influence, and often dictate, Public Policy. The recent flap over the State Board of Education is a prime example. The Pseudohistory of David Barton will soon be in Textbooks…that we are a Christian Nation, that Joe McCarthy was a hero, and that Thomas Jefferson was a minor figure, if he is mentioned at all. This is wrong, and serves no purpose save to further damage the education of our kids, and sow fear and hatred among the Public.

Anyone can cherry-pick the statements of our Founding Fathers to make their case.Too, anyone can cherry_pick the words in the Bible, the Koran or James Joyce to try and convince others to join in whatever Crusade they are mounting.

This is what Free Speech, and Republican Democracy, is all about.

However, in a Civilisation, such as ours…rumored to have been Founded on Reason…it is imperative that we guard against the encroachments of Nonsense into Public Life.

The usual retort to this kind of statement is that I am, thereby, Persecuting Christians.

Those offended have every Right to believe that, as well. But Civilisation only “works” if I am afforded the same Rights….and that some Common Ground can be discovered.

That Common Ground, currently,and for better than 200 years, is that no one Religion be promoted by the State.The Establishment clause, in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, necessarily prohibits any involvement, by the State, in Religion. Therefore, if one wants their kids to receive Religious Instruction, one should look elsewhere than the Public Schools. Public Schools should deal in Commonalities…in the reality, and history, that We all agree on. This is getting more difficult as time goes on.

Similarly, the State is Prohibited from promoting, or favoring, any one Religion in any other area of Public life. This means that Non_Christians, including Muslims and Atheists, enjoy the same Rights and Protections as anyone else. No one can be discriminated against, or favored, due to their Religious beliefs. There must be Freedom of Religion for Everyone, even those you might despise, if there is to be Freedom of Religion for anyone.

One without the other is a recipe for disaster, as the Founding Fathers knew all too well.

Consider what would be the result, if those freedoms were suspended, if the Far Right of Christianity were to succeed in getting their Religion into Public Schools…Drive around Mason. Count the Churches. Which Version is to be taught? Shall it be Church of Christ? Methodist? That might not go down easily with the many Catholics among us….or the Lutherans. Whose Version shall it be?

Are we to impose a Literalist Reading of the Bible? If so, which Version?

This way leads to Chaos….and, eventually, if History has any weight, to a Hobbesian War of All against All.

Better, by far, to leave questions of Religion to the Family, and to the Individual….and keep the State out of it.

If the most despised minority is denied their Rights in questions of Faith, then no one’s Rights in such matters are secure.

on Relocalisation.

2011-08-23T07:57:00.000-05:00

It seems like every week , or so, there’s a new, improved Bogeyman that we should all be terrified of….an Existential Threat to Mom and Apple Pie and all things American. These new “threats” send us caterwauling blindly into inaction, or worse, counterproductive action…action that actually makes things worse, mostly in quiet, unnoticed ways.

The recent spat over the “Islamic Threat” is case in point…Tea People get worked up over a threat that does not exist, and the handful of Democrats feel strongly enough about it to speak up…and around we go!

Meanwhile, electric bills are high, gas is high, propane is high, meat is high and even the crappy produce we get around here is high. Water is scarcer than ever. There’s lots of problems, right here….and with DC and Austin stuck in Ideological Amber, it’s foolish to wait for help from that quarter.

What can we do?

Several years ago, when Hurricane Rita blew through Houston, we had an opportunity to see just how thin the Patina of Civilization is…the trucks stopped running…our supply line was all but cut. Gas ran out, first Regular, then the next grade up, till all that was left was the “Premium”, high dollar stuff. The grocery store , without regular trucks, began to run out of the things we need, want and rely on.

I have news for you. Oil is getting scarce….at least the “low hanging fruit”…The oil that’s left is hard to get at, due to geology, geography and quality. Heavy oil, as opposed to “Light,Sweet Crude” is hard to get out of the ground, and even harder to refine.(there is currently One (1) refinery in the US that can handle the heavy stuff, and last I looked, it was owned by Venezuela). Things like Tar Sands, Oil Shale, and the like are even worse…not only environmentally, but economically,. EROEI, energy return, on energy invested, is a concept that must enter common parlance. If it costs more energy to get a barrel of oil than is contained in that barrel of oil, then getting that barrel doesn’t make sense.That’s why there are so many idle pump jacks in West Texas…the field is played out…Texas(and the USA, in general, save Alaska) reached Peak Oil in 1971. This situation is also why the rigs, offshore, are getting deeper and deeper. The Easy Oil has already been sucked out and used up.

I could go on, but you get the picture. Further information can be had with a google search of “Peak Oil”…or you can ask me.

The rub is that we will have to do more things for ourselves, in much different ways than we are used to. There is simply no “Replacement” for Cheap Oil. A Relocalization of Everything is in order, if we want to salvage a modicum of Civilization. Mason , without Cheap, Easy Oil, is a Wilderness Outpost.

I note that while the drought has all our Ranchers scrambling to get rid of their herds, the price of meat actually goes up. Thousands of Cattle pass through Mason, every week…hardly a pound of hamburger stays here.Too, when I drive to Fredericksburg to get Lamb Chops, they are expensive, and come from Australia…after I drive past 1000 sheep on the way there! We need a local processing/slaughtering facility. Sadly, the Giant Meat Packers (all 4 of them!) have succeeded in jiggering the Regs to all but prevent Local Meat Processing. A Coop is probably the only way around this, but it needs to be done.

I also note that while, as mentioned above, we get pretty crappy produce around here(due to business practices, and the nature of the Factory Farm Model), it’s very difficult for any local gardener to sell produce, locally. Corporate Grocers require enormous Liability Insurance, and have quite silly policies regarding the sourcing of produce…again, the Regs are partly to blame, as they were written by the Big boys. This, unlike the Meat situation, is easy to fix. The city should make available space for a Farmer’s Market, or two….without the usual fees and unnecessary rules.

These two things, alone, would do wonders for Mason, in my opinion….not the least of which is a little income for all the poor people around here.

Hand in hand with these is so called Value Added Foodstuffs. One is required to make jelly, salsa, and whatnot( everything that is not fresh and raw, basically) in a “Code Kitchen”. These are expensive to build and maintain, and there’s not a lot of opportunity for profit making to justify such endeavors under the conventional model. The City could facilitate this by, at the very least, easing up on some of the taxes and codes for such a place…perhaps to be run as a “nonprofit”. Again, a source of income for all our poor folks, as well as an alternative to the boring, homogenous corporate controlled fare, available now.

On Energy, there is an enormous resource currently being vented to the atmosphere…and for which the city and county have been fined; Methane. Methane is “Natural Gas”, and is produced by every living thing. Our sewer system, and landfill and the feedlots, produce gobs of this stuff. All that is needed is to capture it, run it through charcoal, and burn it…to produce heat, electricity…to cook with. The septic tanks, out in the country are already(somewhat inefficient) methane digesters. My napkin calculations indicate that my little bunch, chickens included, produced enough Methane to negate our need for Propane, in an average Winter. Perhaps a tax incentive to our local Propane companies is in order to ease the pain of a transition.

Wind, too, is a viable alternative. I understand that no one really likes the idea of gigantic turbines on the hills, but wouldn’t it be great to have cheap power, for us? The recent flap over powerlines is a direct effect of the Centralization of Power Generation. As much as 40% of what is generated is lost in Transmission. I reckon the Power generated Here, should stay Here

The difficulty of doing all these things is why I’m a Democrat. Who, but Government, has the resources to undertake such large, but arguably essential, endeavors?

Most of these things require a large initial investment…and unless there’s a Bill Gates lurking in our hills, with an overriding concern for the welfare of Mason County, I don’t know where else to look. We can consider it “Creeping Socialism”, “Big Government” and all manner of other Evils…or we can look at it like a WPA, a CCC, for the 21^st Century….an Investment in Us, for Us and by Us.

Just food for thought.

2011-08-20T08:34:00.002-05:00

A kerfuffel has erupted in sleepy Mason Texas...due to this http://www.masoncountynews.com/news/article/44178 ...and the letters that followed(scroll down):http://www.masoncountynews.com/news/section/54

Here is my response...

I do not Fear Muslims.

At least, not just because they’re Muslim.

Similarly, I do not Fear Christians, Commies, Mexicans, Black People, Union Organizers, or Various Evil Spirits.

What I do Fear, is Ignorance…especially the Willful Kind.

Ignorance often has a corollary…Certainty.

I Fear this, as well, for it so often leads to Stupidity.

I did not attend the little exposition this past week.

I didn’t feel the need to…the organization has a website, after all…and a pretty comprehensive one, at that. Lots of links…

It was through perusing this site, and those links, that I could determine that this woman, Ms. O’Brien…who could very well be well meaning and sincere, was nevertheless…Wrong.

I have read the Koran, as well as large swaths of the Hadith…which is kind of the Islamic analog to the Jewish Mishnah…a commentary on the respective Holy Book.

I find no more Violence in these passages than I do in the Bible…or any other Sacred Text. We are a somewhat Violent Species.

I found the Web site of this organization Specious and Self Referential…filled with errors and misconceptions…most of which were easily dispelled with a simple google search.

What I found most disturbing, is the rhetoric, and the pseudoarguments, used by this organization, and those it has linked itself to. History Rhymes, as someone once said….and the language used, against Muslims, has been used before…against many others. In the USA, it has been used against “Reds”, Brown People, Black People, Red People…and , recently, Teachers. Imagery of “Cancer”, or “Vermin”(see Glenn Beck,et al.)…. Of some nefarious group, lurking in the shadows, eating out our substance…admonitions to “Be Vigilant”…to “Wake Up!”.

At the risk of violating Godwin’s Law, the rhetoric Rhymes with that of the Nazis, and Stalin, Pol Pot…well , the list is pretty extensive…

Some, if not most, of the regular folks who believed this stuff were, indeed, well meaning and sincere,(look up “Good German”,or see Milton Mayer’s “They thought they were Free”) but the facts remain.

Power sometimes needs to convince the People that there is an Existential Threat, in order to gain, or maintain, support. Scapegoats are sought out and held up…here is the Problem…here is your Enemy.

When times are hard, we must be especially vigilant that we do not fall prey to these machinations.

Guard against Gullibility.

Ms O’Brien , the original announcement states, “… graduated in 2010 from the invitation-only, prestigious Strategic Engagement Group for the Study of Islamic Doctrine in Washington, DC.” A web search reveals that, just for starters, this group received high praise from the likes of Lt Gen. Jerry Boykin…who, if you remember, tried to turn our current wars into a Crusade against Islam…and was called to the carpet for his trouble. A cursory search on one of the principals in this organization reveals that he, John Guandolo, is a former disgraced FBI Agent…who has ties to such luminaries as Pseudohistorian David Barton, and the Rifqa Bary “Controversy”. Another, Steven Emerson, while lauded by Neoconservative Elements, is considered a hystericist by many.

On ACT’s own site, the founder and apparent head person, Brigitte Gabriel, aka Nour Saman, makes numerous errors and utilizes many Logical Fallacies to convince folks to Fear Islam…according to her Wiki page, she rubs elbows with the likes of Pat Robertson, David Horowitz, John Hagee, and Pam Gellar…all well known for their rabid Islamophobia. .Hardly credible, in my opinion.

These folks peddle Hysteria, Fear and Loathing.

What we need is, rather, Understanding.

Instead of getting all one’s information , regarding Islam, from such one sided purveyors of Hatred, one should seek out “the rest of the story”, a la Paul Harvey. That’s what the Web is for.

Fear and hatred only lead to Violence and War, and I reckon that we have enough of those, already. Read the Koran, for starters…if you’re interested in knowing what it says…Visit a Mosque…there’s a few in Dallas, and I’m sure that more can be found.

“The intelligent person sees with the heart
the result from the beginning;
the one lacking in knowledge
only discovers it at the end.”

And,” In the sight of Love, fear isn't even as great as a single hair”

_Rumi,( Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī) , an 8^th century Persian Sufi Mystic)

....I don't know whether to expect cross-burnings, or what, from the pitch-forks and torches crowd. I drove by the meeting in question, and saw that the attendees were mostly old men, veterans and their wives. Figuring my attendance would be disruptive and counterproductive, I drove on.

Ab Irato

2011-08-09T07:24:00.001-05:00

As I’ve been out on the road for a week, I’ve noticed things…

Between Mason and Galveston, there has been a proliferation of Evangelical-Style Churches…But, leaving at 7 am Sunday morning, I saw empty church parking lots, of all types, the whole 350 miles. Perhaps there was a ball game…

One has to pay extra to get so called “Liberal” news coverage…MSNBC is not on ANY Basic Package, that I’ve found…but Fox, and CNN(fox-lite), sure are…Fox is on every public television I encountered….and every Radio station, save one 90.1 KPFT, that I listened to.

There will soon be ample available retail space along my route.

Every third house is for sale.

Every fourth business is closing, or looking run down…Corporate Outlets (franchises, and the like, are the exception)

That last, the everywhere one looks Corporate homoginisation of America, is all the evidence one needs that this isn’t Papaw’s America.

When I looked around , at an intersection on 61^st street, looking for the coup de grace for an argument I had been making, I saw not one non-chain, non-franchise, non- corporate business…save for the numerous nail and hair salons and a mechanic’s shop.

I hear “Conservative” memes and themes and word constructions from even obvious Liberals…we habitually encounter the world, using “their” filters and frames.

Polls show that the US is at least Half Non “Conservative”…and that at best the ‘Religious Right” make up a mere 15%. One would never know this from direct observation.

Too, hardly anybody, “conservative”, Liberal or “Independent” actually Votes….only 91 million, out of 218 million eligible voters, voted in the 2010 elections. This was the so-called- Tea Party “Revolution”…leading to their “Mandate”…and obstructionism, etc 42%, give or take.

2008,out of 213 million eligible, 132 million voted…this was Obama’s “Mandate”….a little more believable, imo. 61%

Both of these were anomalous, given recent history…turnouts were much lower before the Bush “Administration”….

Tea People talk as though the whole country were theirs and theirs alone…as if all the rest of us are interlopers, insufficiently American to bother counting, let alone paying attention to. Mainstream Media encourages and promotes this delusion, and foists it on our collective mind(that twisted and starved thing…)Everything lurches rightward…and what Liberals there are, or even non Right Wingers, hide…and avoid eye-contact.

Sigh.

Galveston, for a week…

2011-08-09T06:14:00.002-05:00

…with my mom, my brother, and his brood, and my bunch.

Beach-house, not 200 feet from the surf.

Fish! Elijah caught a 4# Redfish, Brother, some rather large Specs…me, a mess of smaller fish.

Saw a Shark, on the grass flats in the Bay…Bay was too hot for fish…all the action was in the surf.Top and bottom, live and dead bait.

Me and wife walked/hobbled to the beach at 10 one night, and the water’s edge had gone! Extremely low tide…new moon, I surmise. Bait flopping around everywhere, and a few fat, unpleasant people catching crabs and such.

Next night, a less spectacular low tide, but me and Kurt and Eli caught mullet in a cast net…the unpleasant ones were, apparently, unable to arise from the couch, that night.

Moody Gardens, the Aquarium, while neat, as all such things are, was entirely overpriced…my 5 year old was an “adult”, under the pricing scheme,…and there were very few places for a cripple, or one of the myriad old folks , to sit….except for the many benches out in the sun, in 99 degree, 90% humidity. They did let me borrow a wheelchair(ugh!). Smokers are required to Broil, as well.

Ghost Tour, on the Strand was cool as hell, and well worth the cost…

The Bolivar Ferry was free, as ever, and neat…the boys really dug it. Captain floored it, and the breeze was much welcomed.

There are Democrats…and Hippies…in abundance on the Island.

I did not expect this.

There’s even a Democratic Club…that meets regularly! In Public!...they even advertise!

If I had the wherewithal, I’d consider emigration…felt like a chunk of South Austin washed up on the beach.

Legs, to varying degrees, hurt the whole time(house had a ramp, tho it was pretty steep)…but I muddled through.

On the last morning, I managed to limp down to the water’s edge, at 4;30 am, and go skinny-dipping. My hip cut it short…but it was cool, nonetheless.

Back in the Broiler of Mason, now.106. 8% humidity.

Reading the local paper, Tea People on the front page, having a meeting about Sharia Law, etc.

Sigh.

Add another entry to the very short list of possible places to be a refugee, of sorts…if money falls from heaven.

Politics plays no small role in this…for once, I felt no undue scrutiny, from Cops, or anyone else…my hair was wilder than usual, too…salt/wind/sun…

How refreshing.

I can envision a shack on a ziggurat, somewhat inland…coupled with a school bus on the beach, or at an rv park, near the beach. Fishing can be super cheap, if one applies oneself….

It rains there.

Only drawbacks are hurricanes(hence, a ziggurat) and ordinances(since we’re not yet god’s, but cumbersome, all the same) and economic considerations(everything’s expensive).

There are workarounds, however….I could make more $$$ jerking around on the guitar, on a streetcorner(protected, 1^st amendment activity(see wiki;”Busking”), than I can possibly make in Mason. Gardening has actual potential,(it rains, sometimes!) if one can undercut the competition(which, at first glance, seems simple)…I could charge more for a tomato than I do here, and still be competitive,,,and there’s at least 2 “farmer’s markets”…all manner of opportunity for entrepreneurship… I observed that there is a shortage of folks willing to mow, for instance..or paint houses…prolly the weather, and homeowners tiring of the all too soon necessity…

This is my first, real (nonworking) Vacation since I was a kid.

Fragment, on Origens.

2011-07-26T08:04:00.000-05:00

I grew up in near East Texas, north of Houston, where the Piney Woods mix and mingle with the more deciduous Central Texas Post Oak Savannah, to the West. Bounded by the San Jacinto, on the east, and the Brazos, to the West.

Our neighborhood, was composed of both types of forest…was somewhat isolated, and had a Railroad as it’s off-center Axis…running north-south.

I remember when I was 5, venturing, for the first time, out of the yard…up a dog-trail, into the Woods.

These Woods would later be the Center of the World…on the slopes of what we called the Hill. A crossroads of two Stagecoach Tracks was situated there…over the years, many artifacts were accidentally discovered…skillets, wagon hubs, and the like. To think that this very oak tree sheltered soldiers and settlers…At the hill, nigh the fence across the road(which was adjacent a big field), ancient bricks were scattered…remains of a sawmill, owned by the man who had cleared this country, and from whom my Grandad had purchased our 10 acres. That man’s house, or the ruins of it, were down the Hill to the west, towards the Tracks, stuck into the belt of almost Jungle that paralleled the Railroad. Remains of kitchen items, lilies from someone’s kitchen garden, now-wild roses…it was an eerie place, especially at night.

In later years, this was the Shortcut to the Tracks…

The Long Way, was by the black top road…which led away north, ere turning west to the Railroad, the Highway(149) and the World, at large. The road skirted the dense Pine Forest, the Presley place…and behind that was Nanduhirion(too much Tolkien), dense Woods, crossed by logging roads, and containing hidden pools, the site of much Reveling in later years…

From that first venture into the Woods, at 5, my World steadily, if slowly, expanded. Folks set limits, which were exceeded, as our audacity grew…before long, we were all over, running through the trails we had cut, in camouflage,(red dawn/Rambo) sneaking up on Train Men, hiding from passing cars(we usually weren’t where we were supposed to be)…eventually Riding Trains…wandering far and wide.

Until I was around 13, I was alone…save for my younger brother…Justin didn’t move in, till then. Brother had buddies his age, while I was apart.

We had great Campouts, at the Hill…the first fort was there…and the first Fire Pit…ashes can still be found, there, at the Center of the World.

Exploding cans of ranch style beans, inadvertently kicked into the fire…trails of burning gasoline in the road, to freak out the paper guy, at 4am…caches of tools, porn mags and explosives…liberated from the Trains and assorted equipment left at the Tracks…

My first drink, New Years Eve, when we were 15…me an ML snuck into Rickett’s Barn, at the hill…after watching their drunken revel for several hours…all staggered home, leaving the barn, and the keg, open. Almost passed out on the tracks that night…which probably should have foretold the disasters to come…awoke to the sweeping headlight of an oncoming Train, horn blowing, rushing up to us…I woke ML, and we escaped…throwing rocks at the wheels, watching the sparks…

I can still taste that first beer…PBR.

All of this is hazy…seen as if through mist…due, I suspise, to the Wreck, and the intervening Wild Years…my 20’s.

I get real nostalgic, overcome with forgotten things, when I return there.The pine trees that were a mere 10 feet tall on the misty September morning when Pop died, are now 50 feet high…the “Stairs”, “Hole in the Wall”,and other fortifications are still discernable, in the Jungle-like growth…staging areas to wait for the Engine to pass, on the sidetrack, so we could board the Trains…by moonlight, and early morning, rain or shine…ride for a while, then jump and roll, on the sand pile, still extant, beside a certain part of the Tracks….then run back and board it again. Talking, at the Crossing, to Trainmen, waiting for a passing freight…on their way to Teague, and on up into the heartland of America, then back, to Houston, the Ship Channel, and the starving people of the World. Wanderlust…engendered by the tales they told, as well as our own explorations…a Wanderlust that has never left me, even now, in my Cripplehood….Further!

We used to communicate, over distance, by “Howling”…just what it sound like…I remember a late summer morning, before the roof of the first Fort was completed, Howling for Justin…a coolness in the air, approaching Fall…the sharpness of the distant stand of Pines…crispness of the air…

And the morning Pop died, we had to meet the bus at Justin’s…there were deer, in the mist, among the small trees in the field…

And the early morning 3am when me and ML, nodding around the fire, at the Hill, heard the coyotes and owls, echoing through the Pines, up from the Creek Bottom…and another, wilder sound…Bigfoot…otherworldly screech/howl…silencing the others…moonlit fog in the pine boughs…

I procured old USGS maps from Gagoo, and, together with stories of my parent’s Wild Years in those same Woods, we set out, beyond the Neighborhood..into the Great Woods, the Creek Bottom (Lake Creek), and the Bog…a deep depression where my Dad had lost a deer, decades before…impenetrable Thickets…a Bald Hill, deep in the Woods, that my Mom spoke of, that I, however, only found once, at sunset…and got lost on the way out…a bic lighter for seeing, and surrounded by Eyes…I made my way out, and home.

Later, (I believe it was Justin) and I crossed Lake Creek, on one of our Wanders…got lost, and spent the night, with a fire, and ten thousand eyes…heard the train in the morning, giving us a direction Home.

When I was 15, an oil rig went up, at the back side of Nanduhirion…me and Justin investigated, by moonlight…his dog kept running from our hide, along the ponds, into the bright lights from the rig…the workmen never knew that they were watched…

Trainmen, too, rarely knew of our presence. Justin overheard them once, talking about the long red headed wild man, in the woods…that was me, of course…my first Mythical Incarnation, as it were…

There were six foot Rattlesnakes, Eastern Diamondbacks, in those woods…I grew up along side them…in retrospect, it’s a minor miracle that either they, or the Trains, didn’t get us…

By the time I was 15, mind filled with Books, the Wanderlust was becoming very Powerful…I’d stand at the Hill and feel the Universe, out there…a Universe of Experience, People, Places…The fuzzy Boundaries of our Neighborhood were closing in…

I began to Leave, at 16…when Mom ran me off for Rebellion….I finally, for real, left, several years later, when the heat was hot, the cops were after me, and there was no question as to whether my two hometowns any longer wanted me around…

Pons Asinorum

2011-07-25T08:02:00.000-05:00

From my Library window,

, I can see the developing Mesquite Beans…trees are full, this year…

It’ll be a good crop.

I am confident that we are the only folks around here that will take advantage of it.

The Trucks still run, after all…three times a week, to what passes as a supermarket.

Soon, now that the Garden is done, for now…I’ll set to work on the Grey Water.

How many thousands of gallons wasted, sent down the drain to be mixed, irretrievably, with the Black?

A simple diversion, of the kitchen sink, and the bathtub..and the Garden is taken care of.

It’s all illegal, of course.

I won’t even ask the city…

I have the intention of running this cast off water through a Biofilter…a kind of built Wetland, of stones and gravel and sand and cattails(an almost perfect food,btw) and papyrus…then off to the Garden.

The Conventional “Wisdom”, that set of assumptions, that Entities like the city operates under, is no longer applicable.

We, here in arid Central Texas, cannot afford the wanton waste we are accustomed to.

As Ive said, great herds of cattle pass through this tiny outpost every week…yet, when one goes to the supermarket, the beef comes from hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away…lamb, when available, originates in Australia! This, after driving past 1000 sheep!

When I first arrived at the idea of Peak Oil, it was considered “Fringe”, “Conspiracy Theory”. In the almost 10 years since then, it has become less and less so…It’s in all the magazines that matter, Natgeo, Economist, Time…but it’s not on TV…so it must not exist.

35 years ago, during the Oil Shocks of the 70’s, we faced a crossroads.

The idea of PO was well known at the upper levels, of course(since the 50’s, at least)…but the Oil Shocks threatened to wake everybody up. Jimmy Carter came on TV, in a sweater, and said that we’d have to get used to a lower standard of living, start reworking our Civilisation to use ever less oil and gas…Solar Panels on the White House.

The Movers and Shakers of the world had other ideas…Reagan, Morning in America(when it was really late afternoon), a return to big cars, conspicuous consumption…just about everything needed to make the situation exponentially Worse.

Asinus ad Lyram, indeed!

I’ve been thinking, for years, about building a Gas Digester…a compost pile/latrine that takes Waste, and turns it into Methane (“Natural Gas”) and safe, nonpathogenic Fertilizer. I have a 55 gallon tank for a prototype…this is likely illegal, in the city, as well

I’m not even gonna ask.

Better to beg for forgiveness…

Even all this ain’t gonna save us…it’s just whittling.

There are 4000 folks within 30 miles of me…and there ain’t a one of them thinking about these things…

Or, if a few are, they are paralyzed…the Problem seems insurmountable.

Any solution would require enormous expenditure, short and medium term…and yield results only after the Conventional “Wisdom” , BAU, has Failed.

That scenario grows closer by the day.

Part of me, when observing the current shenanigans in DC, is breathless…it’s finally collapsing.

I’ve thought this before, of course…the PTB always seem to find a way to keep the rickety Machine lurching forwards…At some point, however, the Baling Wire and Bandaids will no longer be enough. The sand of reality, in the gearbox of Civilisation, will have it’s effect…and things will no longer work.

I have always said,”the sooner the better”…in spite of the pain and suffering that will ensue, even a Die Off.

Better to get the Burning Times over with, while there’s still a functioning Biosphere.

I maintain that the longer the Machine holds together, the worse it will be, when it finally Fails. The Machine’s intolerance of Alternative Means of Survival ensures that we all go down with the ship.

Alternatives must be pursued in relative secrecy, and relative solitude.

…as in the above City Policies….and the stories that come from all over, about folks being made into criminals for such silliness as growing a Garden, in their front yard.

Barba tenus sapientes! “Wise, as far as the Beard!”…as a Habitual, if Feral, Philosopher, these musings always lead me to uncomfortable places…

Are we, as a species, that stupid?

Sadly, it appears that we are.

Still…a Fool’s Hope, is still Hope.

Teabagging the Global Debt Machine

2011-07-20T07:42:00.000-05:00

How ironic, that the architects of the imminent Doom of the global debt based economic system, are the creations of it’s greatest beneficiaries. The current crisis, artificially imposed on the national agenda, is, at root, a crisis of Faith.

The System relies on Faith…..Faith that that green piece of paper, with arcane symbols printed on it, is actually Worth Something…Faith that it has Value.

I’ve advocated a tearing down of the entire edifice of the Machine for a long time…the Machine is too large, complex and composed of “fixes” piled upon “fixes” to ever be “reformed” sufficiently…to be made Ethical, etc. I’ve said that it must, instead, be destroyed, so that we can begin again…and hopefully, this time, construct something that is both Ethical, as well as Sustainable.

This Creature of the corporate Machine, the so-called Tea Party Movement, is on the verge of doing just that.

I do not think that this was it’s intended function…there must be quite a bit of Freaking Out, in the boardrooms and Think Tanks, at this moment….perhaps akin to Einstein, and colleagues, watching news reels of Hiroshima…”What have we done?”

The Fast-Crash, versus Slow Crash Arguments we had at Latoc are about to become Moot. This is the economic iteration of the Protestant Reformation…95 Theses, nailed to the Door…The long, slow decline…the slope we were coasting down …at the end of which was likely a sudden drop…has been replaced by a hard right turn, right off the adjoining cliff…

I’d like to be a fly on the wall…rather, several hundred flies on as many walls…

Obama can, of course, use the machinery of the Imperial Presidency (thanks, George…) to Unilaterally “raise the debt ceiling”…it’s kind of arbitrary, any way…

Similarly, the Fed, and Bernanke, could Cancel the Debt “we owe to ourselves”…thus averting the “crisis”…

Or, the Tea People in the House could cave…

But, does it really matter, at this point?

The proverbial cat is out of the bag….and it appears to be lifeless.

Money is fiction.

All this current Kabuki is doing is stripping away the collective Hallucination that Money ever had any “Value” in the first place.

Should be an interesting time to be alive.

However, a warning is in order….the Forces of Darkness, those who support the Machine…from Economists to Modern day Prophets to would be Dictators are waiting in the wings for just such a crisis.

Folks of a of a more Liberal Orientation should be, as well…with a New Paradigm in hand.

Christ Militant

2011-07-10T09:56:00.000-05:00

Saw this…http://www.texasobserver.org/cover-story/item/17841-he-who-casts-the-first-stone …regarding the group Repent Amarillo. This group has, on it’s web site, a “spiritual warfare map” of the city, wherein they identify locations “in need of spiritual cleansing”…casting out of demons, and the like.

My usual caveats apply…I will defend, to the death, these folks Right to believe in whatever Crazy they like..but, the First Amendment doesn’t cover Militant Assholeishness, when it harms folks…or makes them into targets. (http://www.blog.repentamarillo.com/map/)

This is part of a growing, and worrisome trend in America, today. The rise of the Religious Right, as they are called, has been an ongoing curiosity since the late 70’s. They have been a political sin qua non of Republican office-seekers since Reagan, at least. And they have hidden behind the First Amendment every time they’ve been challenged….”Oh! You’re persecuting us because we’re Christians!”.

Sigh.

In recent years, they have insinuated themselves into all branches of Government…and began stealthily remaking our institutions to better suit their Worldview. Most egregious, to my mind, is the recent actions of the “Texas Taliban”…the Board of Education, rewriting History…and mandating that their version of history be taught in Public Schools. Taliban members, by their own statements, have had no shame in letting us know exactly what they were trying to accomplish: a forced institution of Theocratic Ideals. (see :Cynthia Dunbar, Don McElroy, David Barton, the list is long. (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/ has a good list))

They are under the impression that the USA is a Christian Nation…and they cherry-pick the statements of the Founding Fathers to support that view. It’s all nonsense, of course…but folks seem to have a tendency to believe Nonsense when it supports their prejudices.

The USA was founded as a Secular Nation. Sorry, but that’s the Fact. It is a product of Liberalism…the Enlightenment…sorry, but that, too, is a Fact.

Most of the Founders were Deists (a watch implies a watchmaker…who winds it up, and has no further involvement)….Fact.

In the world they intend, there is no room for Non-Christians…or Queers, or Uppity Women, or anything resembling Free Thought….all that will get ya stoned to death , if these folks get their way (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominionism) (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/david-barton-advocates-seven-mountains-dominionism) (http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheDespoilingOfAmerica.htm)

Most of the “mainstream” Religious Right Leaders don’t like to talk about this stuff , in public…but they’ve been outed many times…and the more extreme ideas have been moving more and more onto center stage.

Gov. Rick Perry’s upcoming “Response” prayer rally, in Houston’s Reliant Center, this August should put any confusion about this to rest.( http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/fact-sheet-gov-rick-perry%E2%80%99s-extremist-allies)

On the one hand, this is a cynical pandering to the extremist vote, by a slick likely Presidential Contender.

On the other, it’s a wake up call to all those Americans who do not share these folks view of what America is all about.

If anyone reads this, I’ll likely be called “AntiChristian”, or something…a member of the Liberal Conspiracy to sacrifice God-Fearing, Real Americans to Satan….sigh. The rhetoric is not new, by any means.

My question, to these Crusaders: If/when you “win” your Culture War, and “take back the country for Jesus”, what do you intend to do with folks like me? Are there pitchforks and torches in my future? A good, old fashioned Stoning? An Auto de Fe?

Your rhetoric leads me to expect such things, if you ever do “win”.

I, once again, am an American…a seventh generation Texan…I trace my lineage back to the brother of one David Crockett…sons of Pioneers , etc.

Whether you like it or not, it’s my country, too.

I support your Right to exist, and to say what you want(with certain caveats(“fire” in a theater, etc)), believe what you like…hang out with who you like…all the Rights of an American. Am I not to be afforded the same consideration?

Is there no room, in your “America” for anyone who is different from you?

My concerns about this movement have, in the past, been met with incredulity…Pshaw!

Turns out I was not far from the mark.

If unchallenged, these folks will make America a Hell-on Earth.

I’ll not go quietly.

Roundup roadblock.

2011-07-09T11:01:00.000-05:00

Sheriff makes me nervous…perhaps he’s brusque and bristling with everyone…but I got some heavy and suspicious vibes from him. I was informed that my inspection sticker is six months expired…lol. I’ve never been one to give much mind to such things, but perhaps this might include me in another Profile…

I am certainly Absentminded.

He seemed threatened, somehow…like I, or something else, might bite him.

That’s when to Fear Cops.

I tried, in my ineffectual, feral way to be polite, engaging…he started with suspicion/paranoia…the Vibe was unmistakable.

I guess it was himself, the Sheriff…it’s been a long time since I’ve seen him…I haven’t had truck with LEO’s in quite a while…I wave to Louis, that’s about it.

I like it that way, as me and Cops have never really gotten along…since the Mippy/Shauna Affair…and my resultant Persecution. I simply don’t Trust them, in general(as unfair as generalizations, generally are).

My Spidey Sense always bristles…and I feel my Otherness.

I endeavor to avoid Imperial Entanglements, of all stripes.

It shouldn’t be this way.

On the one hand, They, in effect, declared War on Me…Drug War, GWOT, and the AntiLiberal/AntiHippie Campaigns that have entertained us for the last century…Criminalising Dissent, even Perceived Difference …any Deviation from some ill defined Norm is suspect.

On the other, They work for me, as much as anyone else. I am a Taxpayer…and more importantly, an American Citizen. While it is not (currently) Overt Oppression, it is Oppression, all the same…this Vibe I feel whenever I’m eye to eye with a LEO. I have endeavored to engage Cops before, with little success. Lil Joe and Paul and Dale and Bill were notable exceptions. Louis is at least trustworthy…and not prone to Ideology. I can expect a fair shake and by-the-book with him. The rest, in my experience, are victims, as it were, of the Us/Them Mentality one reads about in some (mostly Liberal) circles.

A lot of that comes from Fear…I understand and sympathise…but their subsequent attitude and behaviour makes it worse.

I realize that I am sensitive to this stuff, due to my early history….see “Outlaw”…but others have noticed the “special treatment” I seem to get from my Employees.

Sigh.

On Juries and the First Amendment

2011-07-09T09:19:00.003-05:00

The notion that the jury might acquit defendants "in the

teeth of both law and factsn7 has been deeply rooted in Anglo-

American law. Thematically, the foundational jury nullification

cases have been political cases involving the prosecution of

crimes of conscience against the government or the prevailing

social order.* Because of the preponderance of cases in the

literature, the jury nullification debate has been characterized

, by an analysis peculiar to these cases, that is, the dynamic of

a legally guilty defendant being acquitted because of… the jury's

rejection of an unpopular law or an oppressive government or

the jury's embrace of the position of conscience held by the

accused ” (Dorfman, David N., "Fictions, Fault, and Forgiveness: Jury Nullification in a New Context" (1995). Pace Law Faculty Publications.

Paper 532.

http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/lawfaculty/532)

To the point…” the jury's

rejection of an unpopular law or an oppressive government or

the jury's embrace of the position of conscience held by the

accused.” (ibid)

When one is called to Jury Duty, the Judge and Prosecutor and Defense Counsel put you through something called Voir Dire…”In the United States, it now generally refers to the process by which prospective jurors are questioned about their backgrounds and potential biases before being chosen to sit on a jury.”(from the Wiki article,’voir dire’)

In my experience, the Prosector runs this show, while the Defense Counsel plays second fiddle….and the Judge reads, or is otherwise occupied.

The purpose of this exercise is, ostensibly, to weed out those who are “not suitable”…a very subjective judgment.

There has been, for many years now, a concerted effort by Jurists and Prosecutors to push down the Memory Hole a time honored concept….Jury Nullification.

Jurors, and potential Jurors, are “Instructed” as to their Duties…by the closest Authority Figure , the Judge or his delegate. These Instructions are often in such arcane and technical language, that the average Juror cannot fully understand them.(wiki;”jury instructions”)

That aside, increasingly…and over many years…Jurors have been instructed that their Duty lies solely in the finding of Fact..

Any mention of “Nullification” is the surest way for a potential Juror to be excused…and if such sentiments are well concealed by said Juror, so that he becomes a member of the Petit Jury, Nullification (or it’s advocacy) often ends in Contempt charges. Judges and Prosecutors really dislike the idea of Nullification.

So, what is Nullification?

From the Wikipedia article:” Jury nullification is a de facto and traditional power of juries. Judges rarely inform juries of their nullification power. The power of jury nullification derives from an inherent quality of most modern common law systems—a general unwillingness to inquire into jurors' motivations during or after deliberations. A jury's ability to nullify the law is further supported by two common law precedents: the prohibition on punishing jury members for their verdict, and the prohibition (in some countries) on retrying defendants after an acquittal (see related topics res judicata and double jeopardy).”

I’ll go further than this…Nullification is the Power of the Jury to Judge the Law, itself.

“

Jefferson was an advocate of this approach, believing that Juries represented the last line of defense, against Tyranny….of Government, run amok. In America of the early 21^st Century, such a check on Government overreach is much needed. Post 9-11, the Surveillance State has grown by mighty leaps…often without one arm knowing what the other is doing. The War on Terror, in my opinion, merely expanded the Overreach that was begun by the “War on Drugs”…which, in turn, flowed from the Anti-Communist Hysteria that continually reared it’s head during the 20^th Century. The effect of all these “Wars” has been a gradual, de facto, Repeal of much of the Bill of Rights….especially the Fourth, and I’ll argue, the First Amendments.

This gets to the very heart of what I’m on about, this morning…It is my First Amendment Right to Freedom of Conscience to which the anti Nullification Movement does Injury.

If I am to try a case involving, say…a person accused of violating a Blue Law, against the sale of alcohol at 11 am, Sunday morning…my Conscience dictates that the Law, itself, is Unjust….and, thus, unenforceable. Similarly, if the Accused is before me for Smoking a Cigarette in a public park, when there is an Ordinance against such behaviour…my Conscience is very clear…the Law, itself is Wrong.

Is my Conscience to be left at the Courthouse door?

The opposition to Nullification would have it so…and maintain that , in fact, a Jury is merely an arm of the Government….poorly paid Lackeys, who must do as they’re told, by Authority Figures.

On the contrary…I maintain that Authority is not given the Judge, the Prosecutor, nor anyone else, to Compel me to ignore the Dictates of my Conscience. Behind the First Amendment Guarantees of Freedom of Speech, Religion, Assembly, the Press, and Redress lies the freedom to Form one’s own Thoughts…to devise one’s own system of Ethics and Morality, and to then Live by them.

In this Age of Giant Government, and distant, if not Deaf, “Representatives”, there is little that the common man can do to check the advance of Tyranny. Nullification, of the Law, itself, by the Jury…and, necessarily, in the particular Case, before it…is an Important, if largely forgotten, Right and Duty.

I encourage my Countrymen to Think about these things, and to remember them when they are called to serve in such a capacity.

Carpe Libertatem,

ECUMENE

2011-07-09T09:19:00.001-05:00

First, let me get the caveats and disclaimers out of the way…I am wholly against anything resembling the practice, known in Protestantism as “Witnessing”, or more generally, as “Proselytizing”. I find the forcing of one’s beliefs and prejudices on another to be abhorrent, and not conducive to civil society, nor progress, in general.

That said, as a lifelong student of Comparative Mythology, I have identified a number of interesting places to visit (all within 100 miles of me) that relate to this study.

There is a large Hindu Temple, just outside of Austin ….

A Greek Orthodox Church, right downtown, …a Zen Buddhist Retreat…and , of course, the Fire and Brimstone Street Preachers are always a Hoot.

In San Antonio, there is a Large Synogogue … also the Missions…and I’ve heard tell of a Trappist Monestary, as well as a Cistercian, hereabouts…

Things I’ll hafta look for; something Islam, something Unitarian, something Quaker…perhaps some examples of Mysticism, from the various quarters, ie. Kabbalah, Sufi (especially the Rumi Variety),….I have fond memories of a loud, Jumpin’ African-American Baptist Church…actually several…in East Texas…in the one I lived next door to, the Preacher played Bass..organ, choir…the place really Rocked!

I’ve read all the Holy Books…at least cursorily. It would be interesting to visit these places, see how it’s applied…art music, etc…

I’d probably feel better getting advance permission from these folks, before just showing up…for one, I’d rather not be “Witnessed”…I ain’t gonna be converted…

For another, I reckon it would be just polite to advise these folks of my intentions…and my non-threatening nature.

As I’ve said, I’m happy as a lark with my own, private, non-dogmatic approach to/ dealings with…the Divine…I’m just curious , and interested in, the various approaches to the apprehension of Reality.