Noise McNuggets

How fickle my faith in humanity when one composed effort of expression is enough for near total redemption.
No one needs my acceptance, I realize.
One is valid.
Bjork.
Bjork's new album entirely inspires me.
It is such an ascendance of thought and action.
Genres are thrown aside or ignored out of a creative exploration and great love.
It is testimony to
the Boundlessness, the potential within us all.
It reminds me that more than what I see and hear is possible. So beautiful.
I enthusiastically welcome and embrace 'Medulla' into a world too overgrown with the manifesto of Noise McNuggets preached at us from drooling radios.

At last...

HELLO!
Okay. Now.
Something has been done and it has colors and sometimes connections. Yes.
So.
It seems that we are locked, embattled if you will, in a struggle between what we stand for.
We have two myths we put forth, one only for children (because they certainly require irreverent entertainment to keep them from breaking our precious cookie jars) and the other for the inner-longing of "us" all. Right? Both tales state specific values of goodness and reverence. They both, however, run into the realms of paradox when faced with each other.
Is it not bizarre that we put so much effort into annually re-telling the two stories separate yet equal? Jesus is the reason for the season. But what about Santa?
Sure, one is real, we're told, while the other is fake. Whatever. It appears to me as a moral dilemma, not a technical one. The story of Jesus has to do with selflessness and transcendence while the tale of Santa Claus carries with it an ironic dogma: Be good and you'll get stuff. Also, believe.
And what strikes me particularly, is that I've come to recognize the innate shallowness of the Santa myth as the prevalent foundation of all institutionalized religion. The story of the baby Jesus being born and the circumstances surrounding the entire legend, are rife with metaphor and a profound sense of the miraculous that we can truly learn from and use to apply to our lives. Yet, Religion asks very little of us: Carry around this book, memorize it's' passages, worship this particular saint, deity, element etc. But whatever you do, don't THINK for yourself because that might be The Devil. This is closer to the Santa story.
Here's part of the end of the Gospel of Thomas:

"111) Jesus said, "The heavens and the earth will be rolled up in your presence. And the one who lives from the living one will not see death." Does not Jesus say, "Whoever finds himself is superior to the world?"
(112) Jesus said, "Woe to the flesh that depends on the soul; woe to the soul that depends on the flesh."
(113) His disciples said to him, "When will the kingdom come?" "It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying 'here it is' or 'there it is.' Rather, the kingdom of the father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it."

-The Gospel According to Thomas

This is indeed a powerful testament to what I think the story of Jesus is about.

I feel like I'm losing my original point. I only want to note that it's kind of weird that we have these two conflicting stories and we don't acknowledge what effect that has on us or why we do it. The quest for meaning got lost somewhere between the candy canes and the manger.
Yeah, I know it's the sentiment that counts.
Well, Merry Christmas anyway.

K-martyrs to the end...

Conservatives point at bibles, Liberals point at chains.
They all meet up together though, inside the same Costco.

fuck you and your all beef franks
thanks again, see you next time, have a great day

1 for the kiddies

Why is violence O.K. for children to be exposed to and sex is not O.K.?
What kind of values are reflected here?
What does this say about our values as a culture?
Yes: We use sex to sell everything, but then turn around and act offended by Janet Jackson's nipple.
That, in turn, sparked a controversy which proceeded to then totally ignore the bigger questions.
Are we ashamed of our bodies? Human bodies? Why?
Have we decided that naked human bodies are ugly? Who taught us this idea?

I think we've hyper-sexualized our own bodies and projected this pathological drama onto the bodies of everyone else.
When we use sex to sell tabloids, and clutch steadfastly to the belief that humans should only be without clothing when it is a sexual situation, I think we're doing ourselves a great disservice.
Is it unnatural to wear clothes? We certainly weren't born with anything on.
What's the difference between witnessing one person killing another and seeing two people engaged in the act of making love?
Let's get our shit together, folks.

There is no bed but that which makes a lapdog hum.

Little Red Womanhood
made me some soup that's good.

"Take your mask off," she said.
Yes, I replied.
"Except for this piece of peppermint."
My mother.
Look to the GROUND! I shuddered.
"Eventually it will be all these things and more."
And they do choose we are men in cages.
People like Bay Root, the Candyballman.
It's soft, city center leaps up to touch it's own norteno pride.
A millennium skillet and mother frightened me.
Blue basket picnic bears go astumbly-
retardando.

you have the choice to pay attention to people who act fake or honestly depraved

PITCHED BETWEEN MODEL AMERICANS AND THEIR 2-BIT MIDDLE DREAMS OF GLORY LASSOED UP TIGHT AGAINST THEM LIKE THE GYPSY-BELLE (SOUTH OF NOWHERE) COUSIN THEY COULD NEVER HAVE.
FORGIVE ME BROTHER BUT YOUR TRUCK IS BIGGER THAN I CAN UNDERSTAND.

Life is not "school." School is not life.

Do not let yourself become a robot.
The point has to do with learning how to move like a robot (in order to trick the robot world into not noticing you) so you will blend in. When doing this, however, there is a profound possibility you may lose remembrance of your true identity and dreams and intentions. Because the more you learn to move like a robot, the more time you take up playing the role of a robot. You could be doing something else.
You could be exploring the non-robotic possibilities of Life. True learning has nothing to do with memorization; you must absorb your environment, you must empathize with it all in order to really understand it.
Coldly callous scalpel ice shining by precision-cut vertical bloodless lines are for dumbo atheist runaways. Don't let yourself lose sight of the fact that something miraculous is happening; most of what you are doing, most of what is going on in the world (the real world, not the pre-chewed twinkie fascination with locks and doors (guns are for sissies) and vicarious bystanding bullshit) is not understood or known. -Who are you without words or actions?

again with the library smack

Mad mother matriarch stomps around and tromps around planting angry fists of books into unwilling, ungrateful shelves and hefting her haughty purgatory through passageways and door frames and behind large hard desks to uneventful, benevolent pedestals for her portly mass to be displayed from.
Constipated look in eyes, glasses in hand, "Don't attack my person (you small, threatening male)!" Visibly nudged -nearly budged from her rotten Roman dock of obese inner-snarling, she pretended to help (thinks she's helping) by pointing out symbols to show she did something.
Lumpy greyish hairfroth in tangled overflowing mass of steelwool scrubbiness tumbling down her tortured headpride -a mummified reassurance to coffins and dusty shadowsplotches.

Experience is bullshit. Intention is everything.

I really feel that the quality and depth of what goes on with 'pop' culture is a general reflection of the trends in consciousness of the nation (at least). And I've had the idea that playing only musical geniuses on the radio would increase the ability of "the masses" to step outside of their collective box. This is not to say that I'm speaking from the standpoint of a boxless horizon. I, too, have so much to learn and grow. But I've noticed that when I (somewhat severely) discriminate against what I perceive as mediocrity, search for and surround myself with what I believe to be genius, through the resulting immersion I become more greatly in touch with a consistent inspiration towards Life.
In other words, when I turn off the radio because it sucks (which is about 99% of the time), instead of letting it drool in the distance, selling me shallow ideals and encouraging useless desires, I then replace it with what I know to be a truly legendary musician/poet/whatever. And I find I am a better, more thoughtful, inspired, alive being.
I feel that we, as a culture, have lost our culture due in great part to the fact that we take very little responsibility for our surroundings. This can be seen on every level. Consider that: Instead of cooking for ourselves, we often resort to purchasing food that has already been prepared (seasoned, salted, mashed, strained, measured, shaped, packaged, etc.) for us. Here we rely entirely on an abstract entity to provide nourishment for our bodies. This in turn, has subtle and not so subtle effects on our immediate and future physical health, emotional stability and mental availability.
Did you know that constant sound causes harm to your nervous system? Does that matter?
I feel so often bewildered by humans. If the air we breathe is a fundamental platform for the quality of Life on Earth, why do we continue staring straight ahead from within automobiles? Why do we smoke cigarettes? Why, in lieu of intuitive and scientific discoveries, do we not make changes in our behavior to accommodate our newfound knowledge? Is there something innately wrong with us?
It would seem we've managed to alienate ourselves from nearly all natural processes: We fight battles that no one can justify -without hiding behind technicalities and reducing the human experience to a mechanical formula of anti-poetry and dogma; we work unfulfilling jobs and come home to our accidental children and consume meals of candy-coated crap; we go to sleep with pills, wake up with caffeine and do it over and over again until we die of cancer or some other premature, degenerative disease. Why are we doing this? Not for the children.
Everything we do and think has an effect.
Paying the bills is obviously not good enough.
Blaming it all on "the System" or "the Man" or "the Liberals" is not good enough.
We can do better than this, right?

The Newspapers Were Fooled Again

I like to give humans the benefit of the doubt, you know, because I believe all deviousness and EVIL is truly superficial and that we, at heart, are GOOD and mean well and all that. But damn, when I look at the front page of the newspaper, my optimism waivers a bit. Arnold (the "governator") goes to Japan, and what does he have to say about it? Almost literally, "Visit America. You'll be back!"
Ahh, ha-ha. GOOD ONE Arnold! What a CLEVER governor California has.
So I got to thinkin,' what if Arnold (or Bush, for that matter) had something in-depth or,um, EDUCATED to say about anything? Consider Jimmy Carter's recent statement regarding the death and life of Yassir Arafat:
http://nytimes.com/2004/11/12/opinion/12carter.html?hp
This man is obviously quite educated on the matter. I don't really know much about the issues at hand, but there's a sense of understanding and nobility stemming from Carter's intentions that I never have gotten from many other prominent politicians. With Arnold and George W., I only get the feeling they're playing a role in a show and that what they say about anything is geared to fit snuggly within the narrow boundaries of their party-affiliation. I realize, too, that Carter no longer is obligated to serve any special interests, so he is more able to speak like a man and not a politician-robot. However, I find it somewhat difficult to accept that either Arnold or Bush are really very educated or selfless. They are in a position to put on a good performance and they both have access to a greater percentage of the best resources the First World has to offer. And so they use those resources to put on a fancy show and traipse around muttering sitcom-style catch phrases to entice the dreaming masses.
I think Hollywood is a disease that is succeeding in it's infection of the world's ideologies. It's shimmering teeth have clamped down and we are stunned.
When the disposable culture of Hollywood's crude underbite snapped shut, it became the top-down definition we gladly embraced. Who are we? We asked between sweet, foaming gulps of Coke and pilgrimages to Safeway.

I sprout

billy graham cracker jus' whip snappin'
rackin' up points for jesus
you and jews so cold-cocked locked in freezer
doors shut tight
ain't no light gettin' through

Let's get this war on

Yeah, war is dumb.
This morning, after some slow-speaking street kid had to ask me twice whether I wanted to buy pot, and I declined, he turned around and walked off in the opposite direction. On his jacket, I noticed a bumper sticker that read: FOUR MORE WARS, and I was impressed with the simplicity of that statement.
Hey, you want to see something kind of scary? Check this out.
Pay special attention to the names at the bottom of the page.

oh how I wander

in San Francisco now. the cat that curls beneath the warmth of my arm as i pet it's headfur backwards. i am homeless and traveling to visit friends but really just get to know myself without entirely dissolving into the sticky streets of city/alleyways/possibles. i miss my accordion.

for you

I realize some of this is redundant, but I just wrote this in response to a friend's email and thought, "Well shit. This is potentially a more efficient use of words than the previous soapbox declaration." Plus, I like the picnic metaphor. And now I offer it to you.

Yeah, I definitely feel disconcerted. But I also feel a little more free. Backing someone as unfocused as Kerry takes a lot of energy. It's not that we were merely fighting against the Grand Old Party machine. That fact that so many of us stooped so low to fervently support, defend and trump up the Kerry icon, seems sad to me.
I'm sorry that Bush is still there, don't get me wrong. But who really, truly wanted John Kerry in office? I think we only fooled ourselves into playing along with the politicians. We need a different way to make and implement decisions.
It's like we were all on the same Republican road trip, and occasionally, when we had to pee, they pulled over at a truck stop and we thought that was us being powerful. They were driving the car the whole time and now we're at their intended destination. They never veered off course. We could've jumped out at any time -even when they were going too fast- but we were so scared, we stayed under the comfy protection of the convertible roof. Now we've made it to the "Conservative" picnic and there's nothing to eat but cheap hotdogs, potato salad and Budweiser. Those things are mediocre, showy nourishment. I hope we can collectively look past the folding picnic tables and well-manicured lawn, to see that Life has something more to offer, before we gorge ourselves once more, in exhausted, childish resignation, on the post-modern white bread of our comfortable forefathers.

have a bitchin' summer

Why, O Lord,
amidst such bounty and peace
do humans take reason
for suffering and cause still more?

We were all fooled and I'm sorry.
I never quite felt in my heart that Kerry would be a good choice to lead the country; never really wanted him there; only partially bought in to the pitiful, left-wing fever. I saw that I wished for there to be a strong, confident alternative to Bush. In the end now, I see clearer that Kerry was only a pathetic construction put together in imitation of, reaction to the incumbant.
You can't please anyone when you raise your limp-wristed middle finger to the mirror.
I'm kind of glad Bush won this time.
Let the bombs fall.
Let the freedom reign.
And yet I do feel some melancholy. I feel surprised by the seasons of the power of men at this time, as though we were living in the Dark Ages.
Kali Yuga is behind us because Dwapara is defined as 'humans becoming aware of the fine electricities that make up creation.' But damn it if I still feel confused by the intentions and desires of my brothers and sisters:
You're beautiful
but I cannot save you
from the machines
-war, fear, miracle-
of this world.
You must carve your own trail
out and away from speeding tractors'
paths of ruin and ages.
This place would
strap you down
splay you out
as though you were
a cowboy pilgrim's
victory meal
on a sunshiny
Easter Sunday.
You will be groomed
like a prisoner
to the electric chair
if ever you decide to bite,
if ever you choose to
accept completely
any half-assed truths
of all the clutching civilizations
on this planet.
You must let go
of the need
to become too fat
off the riches
-and later an obese zombie
scratching indiscriminately
at doors-
*hopeful eyes*
and waiting for donations.

In your slumber
you are peaceful.
Why do you not bring
that peace to your
waking days?

O bleeding heart of humanity
and open hands of understanding,
where art thou?
Flower of God,
where art thou hidden
inside this trepid war
of life?

When I seek Thee
I have found Thee
betwixt my soul
and the night.
When morning comes,
and I see Thy shining face,
shall I sing with glory
to the patient mountains
or weep for the coming
of another cycle
upon our quaking bones?


__________________________________________________________

A state by any other

You learn the rules and in the end, they're only rules so you let them go.
All that stuff about syntax and punctuation, that whole plan about getting a job and starting a family, all your ideas about who men are and what women do- it dissolves when you die. And you will die. At some point along the way, you will be forgotten too. It may take thousands of years or maybe just a few days; rest assured.
But you have right now.
This is the time for you to play games with rules, to play those games- to take those rules, examine them, hold them up to the light for a better look- and think about the whole thing. Ask questions like, Why am I playing this game? And, why do these rules seem so important to me?
Maybe you're in school. Or maybe you just think you're in school.
Stop for a moment to consider the fact that all of this is made up. Humans created sidewalks and the word, 'sidewalk.' There weren't always words for things. And the things humans have created haven't always been around. There is no reason to believe what humans have made up will continue to exist in a few hundred years.
Bombs could fall today upon our most beloved institutions and it wouldn't matter who was president because we'd just perish beneath it all.
I think we are especially fragile when we believe in presidents and institutions to save us from other presidents and other institutions. I think it must just be a game we play to avoid dealing with our fear of the unknown.
We teach rules to children without suggesting to them that the rules ultimately don't matter, and the children grow up into adults expecting, even repeating, situations in which the governing platform of the situation can only exist once humans have managed to dutifully switch off their capacity to wonder and create things lacking in fundamentalism.
It's as if the dogma sniffing at the heels of our youthful days claws into us and grows like a disease, deforming our humanity as we lower our heads, then our bodies into dull brown boxes. The lid flaps taped over the top of us are our death as able, thoughtful, compassionate beings.
And when this happens, all that's left is a dusty silence accompanied by occasional conveyor belt scratching as our boxes take us through endless circles around a desolate factory.
Get up, people!
You are not living.
Wake up!
Wake up!
Wake up!

I peel eggs

It's beautiful and so peaceful here today. Two nights back, we all stood outside by the brick oven and danced as the full lunar eclipse occurred. The next day I could feel the energy of the land and the people like I was sitting in a river flowing over, around and through me.
Tonight is a massive Halloween party on the Mountain.

JOIN US!

GO

Let's do an experiment.
Why don't we take Stevie Wonder records out from the dust and play them as though
awarding ourselves, supporting the possibility of our genius as channeled by the Wonderous one himself. Yes. And then we might find time to ask questions of our elders, questions like, "Where are you?"
The hypothesis goes like this: Let's take all the bullshit out of our lives (i.e. any domineering of our consciousness by the thought that we need to be accepted, that money makes us better, that the outside has more to offer than the inside, that we're more important than somebody, anybody else.) and rebegin, with bigger intentions.
How important are you?
You are nothing.
You are everything.
Is it enough that you are alive?
I dare you to empty your pockets.

i pick fruit

Ahh.
I just got done harvesting tomatoes (for the second time today), growing on a hillside overlooking the most picturesque mountain valley. My fingernails are dirty and my pants are a bit stained from an impromptu rotting-tomato-flinging war. This is Living. I could do this for a long time, methinks.
The tomatoes are of different varieties and entirely organic. They are the sweetest, most magical tomatoes one could hope for. They're really nothing like the pale, hard stuff in grocery store chains. I wish you could have some right now.
__________________________________________________________________

Ya know, there's definitely something y about being able to harvest fresh, organic food and then head inside and use a computer to convey any hint of the experience to a potential audience of international eyes.

___________________________________________________________________

So I was reading the BBC website today and I came across the following quote from our dear, dear "president."

"A political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander-in-chief."
-George W. Bush

Is there truly anyone out there who fails to see how absurd it is for him, of all people, to be quoted saying this?
Maybe the thinking is that, if he says that kind of thing enough, people will forget everything that has already transpired. I guess it worked quite well in the aftermath of the November 11 attacks, and George Orwell quite effectively demonstrated the theoretical possibilities in 1984.
I'm so unendingly stunned and fascinated by how powerfully the mechanisms of propaganda work to disable an individual's capacity for reflection and free will.

**********************************************************************************

Life and something else


This is the cover art for the new issue of the Village Voice. Artist Alex Ross


wait and see and THEN you'll see that trees don't grow on TREES, ya know.

I have had in my mind for some time now, that there is a difference in our species. It's not racial or religious. No. It has to do with the fact that there is a certain kind of person who:
opens packages with their mouth instead of their hands,
somehow manages to get poop on the toilet seat,
say Porsh-uh instead of Porsche,
There are other things I will remember later.

_________________________________________________________

OH MY GOD THE MOON IS AMAZING TONIGHT SURROUNDED WITH SWIRLING CLOUDS AND A BLEACHED-EDGE NIGHT! STARS DWARFED BY THE MOON'S GLORY -NEARLY FULL (WEDNESDAY, I HEAR) - AND APPEAR PART OF AN ETHEREAL EXPLOSION THAT IS ALTOGETHER IMPOSSIBLE AND I EXPECT IT. PINE TREES THRUST TOWARD THE HEAVENS SERVE AS BACKBONES TO THE LUNAR SINGING LIGHT AND YET FRAME IT AGAINST THE VALLEY FILLED WITH DISTANT BARKING DOG (ONE OF WHOM I DO BELIEVE I JUST MET ON THE WAY TO MY ROOM: BIG, WHITE, FRIENDLY, DOPEY. WAGS HIS WHOLE BUTT WHEN YOU ACKNOWLEDGE HIM BECAUSE HE KNOWS HE'S AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR AND AREN'T YOU SURPRISED AT HIS CRAZY GENIUS OF SLIPPING OFF INTO THE NIGHT TO INVESTIGATE TRAILS AND SKITTER OFF HILLSIDES IN HORRIBLE SUDDEN FEAR OF SKUNKS AND VENTURE FURTHER UNDER COVER OF DARK TO FIND POCKETS OF LIGHT AND WARMTH BROUGHT ON BY HUMANS INDOORS AND ON PORCHES?). THE MOUNTAINS FADE IN A BLUE-BATHED GRADATION AS THEY HUMP SMALLER AND FARTHER INTO THE HORIZON. THE GROUND, ONCE DIRTY BROWN IS NOW ONLY A SHADE OF SILVER UNDER WATCHFUL MOONEYE. IT IS BREATHTAKING THAT THE MOON DECIDES -OVER NEW, BLACK & WHITE CANVASS- WHAT COLOR SCHEME WILL TE THE LANDSCAPE. IT IS, HOWEVER, PUNCTUATED BY PERFORATIONS OF INCONSISTENT ORANGE BULBS STEMMING ON POSTS BEFORE DWELLINGS AND ALIGHTING NIGHT ROADS (SO WE DO NOT, LIKE BIG DUMBDOG, SUCCUMB TO GRAVITY'S TIMELESS JOKES AND VISION IMPAIRED AND FLOW STUPIDLY DOWNWARD INTO THE DUST AND BRAMBLES AND DEER FECES).

Nothin' But Burgers & Fries As We Drive Along Our Personal Highway To Roadlessness And A Future Of Unrepentant Cries In The Wildernesses Of Broken...

Here I sit wondering if my absentee ballot will arrive in time. The election is so near now and inflated and I really don't think about it with that much energetic thrust. It will be what we make it and what we need.

A PASSAGE

Well, just leave it to extremists to misuse trends and potentials and lower the level of discourse.
There's a group that made a reactionary film titled, "Celsius 41.11" that apparently exists as a rebuttle to Michael Moore's existence. Go to their fine, upstanding website to revel in PATRIOTISM at it's most nauseating. In Florida the film is playing at numerous AMC theatres. Who's heard of it before? Nobody.
I was starting to get excited about the potential of mass media outlets finally being used as forums for education, what with Bowling For Columbine and The Corporation and even the new-agey What the Bleep Do We Know? Sure, they've all got their own slant, and they're not all that well done, but it feels like they're only attempting to make sense out of things rather than react thoughtlessly to a stimulus.
And it's not like we're NOT ALREADY bombarded with enough conservative dogma.
_______________________________________________________________

Also, don't you think it's weird that we refer to the United States as "America?" That's such a convenient abrieviation that just happens to leave out, oh, say, Canada and all of Central and South America.
"Have you ever been to America?" We ask people from Latin countries and Canada. It's so arrogant and self-absorbed. We might as well each call our own respective dwelling "America," and be surprised by when "foreigners" come around.

I AWAKEN & QUIP

You know what's great? That feeling in the morning when you know, without a doubt, that it's crispy and chilly OUTSIDE your toasty cocoon of blankets. And you're awake and not planning to go back to sleep, and you just stay there, thinking about everything. You don't get out of bed -not because it's cold outside, but because it's warm INSIDE. Yeah, I like that, did that this morning. It was great.
So I read some news story where Dick Cheney had all these mean things to say recently. It really came as little surprise because he has always LOOKED to me like someone filled with bitterness and unrequited love or something. He comes off as the archetypal greedy, businessman, who seems to stop at nothing to conquer people, things, etc. Think 'Boss Hog,' but an intellectual titan. And he's missing the long, black moustache -waxed and curled at the ends- and the stovepipe hat and the long black cloak. The news never shows Cheney laughing nasally while tying screaming women to the railroad tracks, but it wouldn't surprise me at all. He's got the snarl, though, and that's something (a clue to his character, perhaps?) that can't be obscured, no matter how far you put him behind the Presidential podeum.
Regardless of any premonition I may have had about Cheney, the man, and besides the fact that I actually felt somewhat GLAD to see Cheney honestly BE the monster I suspected he was, the article just me off. Where has Cheney been for the past four years? He's been HIDING of course, hiding while running the Administration -for the most part because he comes off as such a scroogey, villainous character.
The government, naturally wants people to LIKE it, to TRUST it. So they put out a friendly, cute one (Bush) and dressed him up in various costumes, in a timely way, and gave him words to say that sounded good -which too many people mindlessly seemed to gobble up like a Thanksgiving turkey.
And I guess what's truly curious to me, about this particular Administration, is that it was so scientifically structured. The humans involved used so many basic propaganda-based formulas to get in office and get accepted and allowed to facilitate hugely important resources. Nevermind that it's so transparent they have such narrow, chiefly materialistic concerns. They used the science of propaganda and war to sculpt a particular following. Thay succeeded quite well. For that reason, I am impressed. I just wish they'd use their influence more wisely. I just wish they would be even more obvious about what they want, stop hiding behind .
If they truly spoke what they believed in, without resorting to group identifications (i.e. "Republican" "Conservative"), I wonder how many people would go along with their schemes? That goes for ALL politicians. What if people ran on a platform based on what they thought was important, rather than a very specific, already entirely predictable thought system?

more dayness

Yes in the mountains, yes.
Reading East of Eden. Good.
It's' raining off and on here and I love it either way.
Working on Toast.
Will be here another week.
Maybe work?
Woke up early this morning and feel better than previous 2 days' 12 hours of sleep.
It is good and the community is so delicate and beautiful.
The quiet is quietly amazing
and there is warmth.

boyhowdy

Well, .
Here I am in the mountains and writing a blog. Who's crazy? Tell me, WHO'S CRAZY NOW?

addendum

From Chris Hedges' essay "Feeling the Hate with the National Religious Broadcasters" in the May issue of Harper's.

"I can't help recall the words of my ethic professor at Harvard Divinity School, Dr James Luther Adams, who told us that when we were his age, and he was then close to eighty, we would all be fighting the `Christian fascists'.
He gave us the warning 25 years ago, when Pat Robertson and other prominent evangelists began speaking of a new political religion that would direct it's efforts at taking control of all major American institutions, including mainstream denominations and the government, so as to transform the US into a global Christian empire. At the time, it was hard to take such fantastic rhetoric seriously. But fascism, Adams warned, would not return wearing swastikas and brown shirts. It's ideological inheritors would cloak themselves in the language of the Bible; they would come carrying crosses and chanting the Pledge of Allegiance ...

Then as now, Adams said, liberals failed to understand the power and allure of evil and when the radical Christians came, these people (liberals) would undoubtedly play by the old, polite rules of democracy long after those in power had begun to dismantle the democratic state. Adams had watched the German academics fall silent or conform. He knew how desperately people want to believe the comfortable lies told by totalitarian movements, how easily those lies lull moderates into passivity.

He told us to watch closely the Christian Right's persecution of homosexuals and lesbians. Hitler, he reminded us, promised to restore moral values not long after he took power in 1933, then he imposed a ban on all homosexual and lesbian organizations and publications. Then came raids on the places where homosexuals gathered, culminating on May 6, 1933, with the ransacking of the Institute for ual Science in Berlin. Twelve thousand volumes from the institutes' library were tossed into a public bonfire. Homosexuals and lesbians, Adams said, would be the first deviants singled out by the Christian Right. We would be next "