To dig into the mysteries of the curvature of space, to see a straight line does not exist, to pull apart equations and understand variables one by one...
To want our species to unite as one, ignoring the pleas and demands of countries and corporations...
To empower us individually within our subcultural niches and crannies, allowing our cultural practices to blend with one another at the edges, while others stay deeply mired in the middle, avoiding culture clash/shock...
What to do with the radical/extremist, aggressive/assertive empire builders who don't get along well with others?
The longer I sit here, the less economically viable I become, losing skills built upon jargon and applied scientific analysis of personality trait compatibility we call the business of doing business.
At least my financial portfolio keeps growing.
If the recent Chinese government gathering required almost 1 million security personnel to ensure chaos does not ensue, what do other governments require during their legislative sessions? In other words, since the dawn of civilisation, have we ever had peaceful consensus within a given population?
Of course not.
If the rich get richer until the next cultural revolution, especially as the rich clamp down ever tighter on freedom in a false sense of security, then what's the formula for comfortable, successful survival from one cultural/economic wavefront crash to the next?
In the discussion about the form our containers - our bodies - should take when we establish colonies on other planetary/satellite bodies, we understand we won't know the tradeoffs we make when we change our biological makeups. New body/thought combos lead to new cultural experiences. We don't want us to be robots or anarchic units that break apart into disordered pieces. We want individual decisionmaking within the framework of group/family coordination/cooperation.
But life is risk. Happenchance happens. Within order, there is chaos and uncertainty. Yesterday was Pi day and today is pie day and everyone knows pie are squared.
People keep killing each other with bombs but killing in the name of whom? Warriors in this country kill to protect this government's form of personal freedom at the cost of what? When do the means justify the ends?
My computer programmers wait for me to give them instructions but I am stymied. For me, the end game is protecting the intellectual trust built by our global society by getting us and/or some viable form of our intellectual trust onto other worlds. However, family, friends and colleagues have more personal ends they want me to put first and foremost.
Which is more important, species or family?
I am just one person. I am tired and depressed about all the contradictory cultural wants and needs while at the same time I am happy to see we can reasonably consider all the contradictions at once without going to war globally over trivial matters.
I want to slam my fist down on the ground and shake up our species to listen for one brief moment, telling us to establish a global space conglomerate which will take people from all walks of life and give them new identities as nonnational members of our species who will design, build and launch a new form of our bodies into space with our global heritage/intellectual trust, letting the rest of us continue to quarrel over Earth's land, air and water rights like we always have.
Our species will find ways to survive cultural skirmishes and wars. We'll keep redefining friends and foes. We are self-aware and able to see not only individual mortality but species and planetary extinction, also. One asteroid, comet or supernova away from being just another stock pot on the boil, plant and animal parts no longer distinguishable.
My life does not matter. I am unimportant. I do not have offspring to protect but I do have extended family to consider. The survival and thriving of our species depends on them and you.
So what do I tell my computer programmers to do next? If killing each other and knocking each other down with false currency prices for you to get the brass ring is more important, then there's nothing I have left to do here. You've simply turned the Book of the Future into an infinite loop. If that's what you want, then the book is yours as is and I can save myself the trouble of sharpening more pencils.
I'm going to look for others who don't care about national squabbles. I've spent too many weeks paying attention to those who've put personal gain ahead of what's most important, our species as one big family. I am no longer interested in what you have to say - you make me depressed while listening to your doubleplusminusspeak. General news sites which spin the same ol' millennial-old tales - google, yahoo, baidu, slate, wired, cnet, bbc, abc, cbs, fox, nbc, newyorker, londontimes, lemonde, chinadailynews, timesofindia, aljazeera, independent.ie, izvestiya, etc. - have worn out their usefulness for me.
I want visionaries, not spies disguised as missionaries. I want people focused on finding solutions, not spinmeisters exacerbating problems. Those who wish to use the Internet for good, I welcome you. Those who wish to use the Internet for ill purposes or stifle freedom of constructive speech and freedom of information on the Internet, you're dead to me.
Time to move into the next era of true global citizenship, where we citizens take over the reins and govern ourselves, ferreting out the wealth and riches of those who wish to control citizens by force. Self-governance also means ferreting out any global family members who wish ill will - any means do not justify any ends. True freedom is responsibility for self and family.
Let me put it another away - if your subculture gets in the way of our species, then you've been warned ahead of time that tomahawks will fly to meet you head on. Your days of risking our survival without our approval is over.
The moment has arrived to tell my computer programmers what to do - spread the message that the sleeping giant of the Global Citizen is awake. Now is the time for everyone to say "yes" or "no" at once. You know what to do with those who say "no" - don't take "no" prisoners - we spend our precious resources on positive reinforcement. Computer programmers, activate the network, starting ... NOW!
15 March 2010
13 March 2010
Flashback, 19th May 1995 - The Farmer’s Almanac Guide to Shakespeare: A 1/2-Act Play
The Farmer’s Almanac Guide to Shakespeare: A 1/2-Act Play
To be performed in a casual setting; the performer should wear an old hat, dirty overalls, and a wornout pair of boots and be holding a large book, preferably the works of Shakespeare.
Hi folks, I was gonna tell y’all about the weather and how my farm was doin’ and all that but this morning I picked up this stack of tall tales that’s been holdin’ up one end of my kitchen table ever since my daughter got kicked outta eighth grade for chewin’ tobacco.
The fellow in this here book says that old psychiatrists have gray beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes all yellowed-over, their gums are red from gnawin’ and that they lack their sanity, together with having weak legs, so they have to hang onto the toilet when they pee (kinda like some of them politicians after they’ve had a few sips of my moonshine...er, I mean cough medicine). I don’t mean to insult the bunch of you but that purty well describes the rest of us here today. But as I was sayin’, you can tell this fellow has a lot on his mind, and he uses some purty fancy words to say all what he’s got to say. I especially like this story, called...
The Good Ol’ Boy Hamlet
[The performer makes a sound, clearing the throat, thrusts the book out in an overdramatic fashion and then pulls the book in close as if the words are hard to see, bending down to study the page for a few seconds before saying the following paragraph slowly, as if getting used to reading out loud.]
I heard this speech once, but it was never acted; or if it was, not more’n once; it didn’t please a lot of folks; it was like fancy fish eggs to the people: but it was -- as I reckon, and others, whose judgments in such matters are much smarter’n mine -- an excellent speech, every sentence put together purty well and set down with as much modesty as a cunning politician.
[The performer stands up straight and holds the book back out, then loudly enunciates the following, overacting as much as possible.]
To seed or not to seed the fields: that is the question:
Whether this brain of mine can suffer
The Cadillacs and Pierce Arrows of winnin’ the lottery fortune,
Or take pesticides against a sea of boll weevils,
And by sprayin’ end them? To die: to sleep:
No more; and by sleep to say I end
The heartache and the thousand bumps to my butt
That a tractor’ll do to ya, it’s a sitiation
Definitely to be wished fer. To die, to sleep:
To sleep: perchance to dream : ah, there’s the rub of Ben Gay;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When I have taken off these dirty overalls,
Must give me pause: that’s the respect
That makes a calamity of this long life;
For who would bear the naggin’ and complainin’ of your spouse,
The government taxes, the businessman’s contempt for farmin’,
The pains of your ol’ sweetheart’s love, the delay of your farm loan approval,
The overbearin’ county commissioners and the free handouts
That lazy farmers whose crops fail take,
When I myself could quietly make
Out like a barefoot bandit? who would bear the burdens,
To grunt and sweat under this weary life,
But that the wonder of somethin’ after death,
The undiscovered country from whose boundaries
No traveller has returned, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we don’t know of?
Thus conscience does make Christians of us all;
And thus the natural-born worldly will
Is replaced with Jesus and his cast of angels,
And enterprises of great importance and in regards
to this moment our thoughts run to God
And lose the love for the world. -- Listen now!
My fair wife! She calls me back to the dinner table for some vittles.
Well, folks, I’d best be going afore she up and feeds my supper to the hogs.
- 19 May 1995
[from: http://web.archive.org/web/20080515162808/www.geocities.com/bigcove/homepage.html]
To be performed in a casual setting; the performer should wear an old hat, dirty overalls, and a wornout pair of boots and be holding a large book, preferably the works of Shakespeare.
Hi folks, I was gonna tell y’all about the weather and how my farm was doin’ and all that but this morning I picked up this stack of tall tales that’s been holdin’ up one end of my kitchen table ever since my daughter got kicked outta eighth grade for chewin’ tobacco.
The fellow in this here book says that old psychiatrists have gray beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes all yellowed-over, their gums are red from gnawin’ and that they lack their sanity, together with having weak legs, so they have to hang onto the toilet when they pee (kinda like some of them politicians after they’ve had a few sips of my moonshine...er, I mean cough medicine). I don’t mean to insult the bunch of you but that purty well describes the rest of us here today. But as I was sayin’, you can tell this fellow has a lot on his mind, and he uses some purty fancy words to say all what he’s got to say. I especially like this story, called...
The Good Ol’ Boy Hamlet
[The performer makes a sound, clearing the throat, thrusts the book out in an overdramatic fashion and then pulls the book in close as if the words are hard to see, bending down to study the page for a few seconds before saying the following paragraph slowly, as if getting used to reading out loud.]
I heard this speech once, but it was never acted; or if it was, not more’n once; it didn’t please a lot of folks; it was like fancy fish eggs to the people: but it was -- as I reckon, and others, whose judgments in such matters are much smarter’n mine -- an excellent speech, every sentence put together purty well and set down with as much modesty as a cunning politician.
[The performer stands up straight and holds the book back out, then loudly enunciates the following, overacting as much as possible.]
To seed or not to seed the fields: that is the question:
Whether this brain of mine can suffer
The Cadillacs and Pierce Arrows of winnin’ the lottery fortune,
Or take pesticides against a sea of boll weevils,
And by sprayin’ end them? To die: to sleep:
No more; and by sleep to say I end
The heartache and the thousand bumps to my butt
That a tractor’ll do to ya, it’s a sitiation
Definitely to be wished fer. To die, to sleep:
To sleep: perchance to dream : ah, there’s the rub of Ben Gay;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When I have taken off these dirty overalls,
Must give me pause: that’s the respect
That makes a calamity of this long life;
For who would bear the naggin’ and complainin’ of your spouse,
The government taxes, the businessman’s contempt for farmin’,
The pains of your ol’ sweetheart’s love, the delay of your farm loan approval,
The overbearin’ county commissioners and the free handouts
That lazy farmers whose crops fail take,
When I myself could quietly make
Out like a barefoot bandit? who would bear the burdens,
To grunt and sweat under this weary life,
But that the wonder of somethin’ after death,
The undiscovered country from whose boundaries
No traveller has returned, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we don’t know of?
Thus conscience does make Christians of us all;
And thus the natural-born worldly will
Is replaced with Jesus and his cast of angels,
And enterprises of great importance and in regards
to this moment our thoughts run to God
And lose the love for the world. -- Listen now!
My fair wife! She calls me back to the dinner table for some vittles.
Well, folks, I’d best be going afore she up and feeds my supper to the hogs.
- 19 May 1995
[from: http://web.archive.org/web/20080515162808/www.geocities.com/bigcove/homepage.html]
Another Book Writes Itself
The last blog entry was going to end the last book with a quote from the end of the LOTR book series about the elves and other folks sailing the seas to another shore because it was the end of one era but I think the end it wrote itself was good enough.
And now a new book steps forward, wiping away the dust and dirt of the "country boy" character to find a new way to create a world parallel to this one.
Meanwhile, I recover from the post-book depression that overwhelmed me the past few days, depression that leads to thoughts of my mortal end and asks what do I have to show for myself but the results of my output. Rhetorical question. What else do I have to show for myself but my outputs?
Last night, while sitting with three fine couples, including Rebecca and her beau and two other lovely ladies and their gentlemen, I sat with my wife and pondered young adulthood.
When my wife and I first settled into our new home, we played the homeowner roles, my wife paying attention to the interiour of the house and I to the exteriour. She planned the wallpaper (asking for my input) and I planted trees and flowers (asking for her input). She sewed and I mowed. She cut reams of cloth and I cut down old trees.
Our house slowly filled with furniture and our garage with tools.
Three chainsaws, three lawnmowers, a string edge trimmer, power drills and gardening tools later, our two-car garage is a one-car garage. Our outdoor storage building is packed with material for a rock ledge treehouse I never finished.
Our house is full of furniture, dishes and whatnot we plan to give away to our nieces and nephews (our first niece to get married already receiving some of our furniture), my wife and I not having the privilege of bearing and raising children of our own.
And so I return to my depression and the three couples last night.
We all experience mild periods of depression - natural responses to dead family members, traumatic episodes (divorce, natural disaster) - and some of us experience severe "clinical" depression. The former, we say, is our bodies' defensive position to step back and rewire the brain/body for future depressive episodes. The latter is a result of genetic and environmental influences that create abnormal adjustment capabilities.
Last night, I felt depressed and had to deal with strangers. My usual jovial personality can project a rather normal response to those who don't know me. For those who know me, my responses are skewed versions of how I normally act. So, with the three couples at the table, I pretended to be interested in their lives (potty training, an auction bid gone wrong in North Carolina and how the couples met standing out the most) while inside my personality was screaming for help. I looked into the eyes of every person at the table and all of them seemed to be well-contained within their personality cocoons, unaware of my cry for help. They did not see me ask for help and then push them away with the action of my eyes.
Perspective makes mild depression less debilitating. The event that brought us together last night benefited the United Cerebral Palsy association, dedicated to helping people with physical conditions I cannot imagine having.
Thus, despite momentary mental discomfort, I joined my wife in the silent auction bids, winning a few pieces of Galway crystal (beer tankards and candle stands courtesy of a buyer from Avocent), Beleek china (a miniature Irish cottage), a piece of jewelry and something else I can't remember. We didn't win either of the two buckets of whiskey we'd bid on. One of the guys at our table won $2000 worth of wine, including two cases and a refrigerated wine cooler. Another one of the guys, who has Lowe's as a client, noticed that no one had claimed the chainsaws.
We ate our traditional Irish meal - potatoes, corned beef, cabbage, fish and other vegetables - drank our beer (Smithwick's, instead of Guinness) and table wine, and watched the local dance studio's production of young Irish step dancers, their jigs timed with the stage band playing modern versions of traditional Irish tunes.
We saw a few folks we knew and had a good time overall. Hard to believe a year has passed since we last enjoyed an Irish evening to help folks with CP, all this a day after we ate a huge meal with friends at the Melting Pot to help them celebrate their one year anniversary in Huntsville.
What will this next book discover? I don't know. I'm testing a few characters with personality traits from my friends such as Rob, Tammy, Trish, Gary, Kyle, Faith, David, Cheryl, Mary, Charline, Joe, and Keith. I'll include notes that hint of my friend Ganesh's decision to move back to Malaysia with his wife. I'll throw in comments from my friends on facebook. I'll continue to include pop culture even when culture shock (or maybe because it) knocks me into a depressive spin at times.
Some friends of mine think I neglect too much my natural, redheaded Viking fury and its ties to sports and my tendency to enjoy war. Perhaps they're right - I guess I try to compensate for my desire to rule the world with an iron, dictatorial fist by concentrating on peaceful solutions to world-sized problems. Otherwise, if this world was mine, I'd rewrite the rules of engagement between cultures, forcing all of us to put family first - the crimes/sins of one person would require payment by or punishment on the person's living forebears and rewriting the history of the person's deceased forebears. Focus on positive reinforcement of the family with severe punishment for disobeying the family trust.
Anyway, the new book has begun, reflecting the general fiscal and civil conservative family values that most cultures bring to this alternate world. Anyone in this imaginary world who wants to take risks with large-scale economic changes and fails will pay penalties not found in the real world in which I live. The men and women in this imaginary world will not tolerate CEOs, boards of directors, politicians, hedge fund operators, media moguls or others who damage society. Reward and punishment in this imaginary world puts a premium on freedom, including death for those who take freedom into their own hands and destroy the livelihood of others. Mergers, acquisitions, creative financing, massive government legislation, and religious/populace movements that are not family friendly will be dealt with immediately, ensuring thoughtful consideration of the species as a whole.
The name of the new book: "Put Family First And Personal Freedom Lasts"
As always, I'll consult the Book of the Future and other oracular miracle creators to stay as close to our real future as possible so we can always see ourselves here and imagine what our real world would be like if we change just a few things in this moment.
No future is guaranteed.
Any future is possible.
And now a new book steps forward, wiping away the dust and dirt of the "country boy" character to find a new way to create a world parallel to this one.
Meanwhile, I recover from the post-book depression that overwhelmed me the past few days, depression that leads to thoughts of my mortal end and asks what do I have to show for myself but the results of my output. Rhetorical question. What else do I have to show for myself but my outputs?
Last night, while sitting with three fine couples, including Rebecca and her beau and two other lovely ladies and their gentlemen, I sat with my wife and pondered young adulthood.
When my wife and I first settled into our new home, we played the homeowner roles, my wife paying attention to the interiour of the house and I to the exteriour. She planned the wallpaper (asking for my input) and I planted trees and flowers (asking for her input). She sewed and I mowed. She cut reams of cloth and I cut down old trees.
Our house slowly filled with furniture and our garage with tools.
Three chainsaws, three lawnmowers, a string edge trimmer, power drills and gardening tools later, our two-car garage is a one-car garage. Our outdoor storage building is packed with material for a rock ledge treehouse I never finished.
Our house is full of furniture, dishes and whatnot we plan to give away to our nieces and nephews (our first niece to get married already receiving some of our furniture), my wife and I not having the privilege of bearing and raising children of our own.
And so I return to my depression and the three couples last night.
We all experience mild periods of depression - natural responses to dead family members, traumatic episodes (divorce, natural disaster) - and some of us experience severe "clinical" depression. The former, we say, is our bodies' defensive position to step back and rewire the brain/body for future depressive episodes. The latter is a result of genetic and environmental influences that create abnormal adjustment capabilities.
Last night, I felt depressed and had to deal with strangers. My usual jovial personality can project a rather normal response to those who don't know me. For those who know me, my responses are skewed versions of how I normally act. So, with the three couples at the table, I pretended to be interested in their lives (potty training, an auction bid gone wrong in North Carolina and how the couples met standing out the most) while inside my personality was screaming for help. I looked into the eyes of every person at the table and all of them seemed to be well-contained within their personality cocoons, unaware of my cry for help. They did not see me ask for help and then push them away with the action of my eyes.
Perspective makes mild depression less debilitating. The event that brought us together last night benefited the United Cerebral Palsy association, dedicated to helping people with physical conditions I cannot imagine having.
Thus, despite momentary mental discomfort, I joined my wife in the silent auction bids, winning a few pieces of Galway crystal (beer tankards and candle stands courtesy of a buyer from Avocent), Beleek china (a miniature Irish cottage), a piece of jewelry and something else I can't remember. We didn't win either of the two buckets of whiskey we'd bid on. One of the guys at our table won $2000 worth of wine, including two cases and a refrigerated wine cooler. Another one of the guys, who has Lowe's as a client, noticed that no one had claimed the chainsaws.
We ate our traditional Irish meal - potatoes, corned beef, cabbage, fish and other vegetables - drank our beer (Smithwick's, instead of Guinness) and table wine, and watched the local dance studio's production of young Irish step dancers, their jigs timed with the stage band playing modern versions of traditional Irish tunes.
We saw a few folks we knew and had a good time overall. Hard to believe a year has passed since we last enjoyed an Irish evening to help folks with CP, all this a day after we ate a huge meal with friends at the Melting Pot to help them celebrate their one year anniversary in Huntsville.
What will this next book discover? I don't know. I'm testing a few characters with personality traits from my friends such as Rob, Tammy, Trish, Gary, Kyle, Faith, David, Cheryl, Mary, Charline, Joe, and Keith. I'll include notes that hint of my friend Ganesh's decision to move back to Malaysia with his wife. I'll throw in comments from my friends on facebook. I'll continue to include pop culture even when culture shock (or maybe because it) knocks me into a depressive spin at times.
Some friends of mine think I neglect too much my natural, redheaded Viking fury and its ties to sports and my tendency to enjoy war. Perhaps they're right - I guess I try to compensate for my desire to rule the world with an iron, dictatorial fist by concentrating on peaceful solutions to world-sized problems. Otherwise, if this world was mine, I'd rewrite the rules of engagement between cultures, forcing all of us to put family first - the crimes/sins of one person would require payment by or punishment on the person's living forebears and rewriting the history of the person's deceased forebears. Focus on positive reinforcement of the family with severe punishment for disobeying the family trust.
Anyway, the new book has begun, reflecting the general fiscal and civil conservative family values that most cultures bring to this alternate world. Anyone in this imaginary world who wants to take risks with large-scale economic changes and fails will pay penalties not found in the real world in which I live. The men and women in this imaginary world will not tolerate CEOs, boards of directors, politicians, hedge fund operators, media moguls or others who damage society. Reward and punishment in this imaginary world puts a premium on freedom, including death for those who take freedom into their own hands and destroy the livelihood of others. Mergers, acquisitions, creative financing, massive government legislation, and religious/populace movements that are not family friendly will be dealt with immediately, ensuring thoughtful consideration of the species as a whole.
The name of the new book: "Put Family First And Personal Freedom Lasts"
As always, I'll consult the Book of the Future and other oracular miracle creators to stay as close to our real future as possible so we can always see ourselves here and imagine what our real world would be like if we change just a few things in this moment.
No future is guaranteed.
Any future is possible.
11 March 2010
My Work Here Is Done
For lo these many years, I have waited for the sign to tell me I could fade into the background and stop playing the headline game with my associates. The sign has appeared. The time has come. My work here is done.
The responsibility for the future lies with the parents of the next generation:
At last, I can close up this blog and leave all the technological gobbledygook to you young'ns. I was here in the 1970s to hand-build computers and complete chemistry experiments in basements with friends and I'm sure I'll see us continue our cyborg transition into fully integrated technobeings one day. But I choose to step away from all this and live life as the natural-born being my parents raised, watching and feeding the wild animals who can't tell the difference between a telephone pole and a tree but whose sense of magnetic north and south are affected by the electricity we pass through power lines.
This moment is all I have and I want to enjoy it as the states of energy I'm comfortable calling my own. It is my peace, my religion, my home - my body. May you find your own peace, happiness and joy in your own way.
Remember, we are one big family so let's give every family member the room to grow, unstifled, while we watch each other and make sure we don't get too far off track. Religion is not a building, it is people helping people. The foundation of religion: what you decide to call that which you can't comprehend (the universe (a/k/a the creator, gods, God, Allah, etc.)), and the rules our species developed to create civilisation define cultures, not families.
Individually, we have states of energy that allow us to most easily find our way in the world - our skillbuilding talents - let every one of us find and use those states of energy to the best of our ability, regardless of how it may appear to contradict the skills and talents of other family members.
Trust one another to put family first. If someone breaks that trust, then you have the right to deal with that person according to well thought-out, local rules and regulations agreed to by the plurality, not just the majority or a quorum of minorities.
My blogging days are over. I trust you to put family first.
This is TreeTrunkRick signing off. Have a great day!
The responsibility for the future lies with the parents of the next generation:
The changing face of America: Minority birth rates will outpace whitesI leave this continent and this globe in the hands of families who have a direct impact and vested interest in how our species cooperates with others in its environment.
At last, I can close up this blog and leave all the technological gobbledygook to you young'ns. I was here in the 1970s to hand-build computers and complete chemistry experiments in basements with friends and I'm sure I'll see us continue our cyborg transition into fully integrated technobeings one day. But I choose to step away from all this and live life as the natural-born being my parents raised, watching and feeding the wild animals who can't tell the difference between a telephone pole and a tree but whose sense of magnetic north and south are affected by the electricity we pass through power lines.
This moment is all I have and I want to enjoy it as the states of energy I'm comfortable calling my own. It is my peace, my religion, my home - my body. May you find your own peace, happiness and joy in your own way.
Remember, we are one big family so let's give every family member the room to grow, unstifled, while we watch each other and make sure we don't get too far off track. Religion is not a building, it is people helping people. The foundation of religion: what you decide to call that which you can't comprehend (the universe (a/k/a the creator, gods, God, Allah, etc.)), and the rules our species developed to create civilisation define cultures, not families.
Individually, we have states of energy that allow us to most easily find our way in the world - our skillbuilding talents - let every one of us find and use those states of energy to the best of our ability, regardless of how it may appear to contradict the skills and talents of other family members.
Trust one another to put family first. If someone breaks that trust, then you have the right to deal with that person according to well thought-out, local rules and regulations agreed to by the plurality, not just the majority or a quorum of minorities.
My blogging days are over. I trust you to put family first.
This is TreeTrunkRick signing off. Have a great day!
10 March 2010
Workplace Rumours
Uninterested in politics, global espionage or other topical news topics, colleagues of mine in the investment community want me to get back on track to help them find the next great thing in monetary growth.
We have often joked that water cooler discussions lead to more water cooler discussions and rarely to riches.
We have also joked about how to make money after an economic downturn - scare up the crowd and start a war - but want something more interesting than military brouhaha to fill the holes in the backyard where we store our peanut butter jars full of pocket change.
Video game producers and movie theatre owners point their investors to the testosterone-filled crowds that buy into the gaming/entertainment sales techniques.
Post-depression/recession responses by the populace tend toward conservative tastes.
Prosperous or poor, people generally view "green" technology with suspicion, too impatient to pay extra to get payoffs later on.
The Internet has shortened our attention spans considerably, turning all of us into city dwellers, operating 24 hours a day.
Information-based economies of scale have proven productive as long as both data mines and rare earth mines continue to open veins and shafts built to last.
Can you make money turning desert into farmland, feeding the starving, clothing the destitute, housing the homeless, making power cheap on or off the grid, and creating limitless amounts of fresh water? Can you do all that with a smile on your face and a sense of humour during the worst setbacks?
Are you still pining for the easy money days of sub-prime mortgage derivatives? Keeping out-of-work physicists on staff - modern-day alchemists - to help create magic formulas to pull gold out of thin air? Scraping by on scrapping the euro, yen and dollar exchange rate in quick succession?
Have you hedged the marijuana crops, looking for any kind of profit to pay your yacht docking fees this year, saving a little loot to fund lobbying efforts for legalisation of one of the world's largest cash crops?
Still not sure about talk of a world currency and where to stash your holdings?
Wondering if global health care coverage is next, assuming governments find a way to resolve profit-sharing with private companies from universal medical coverage for "the people," giving new legal status to the class of global office workers who don't care about national citizenship?
Diversify when times are tough. Dive into deep waters when tides are high. Unless risk is your theme - in that case, keep skimming off the top and move on to the next butter churn before anyone misses the missing cream.
We have often joked that water cooler discussions lead to more water cooler discussions and rarely to riches.
We have also joked about how to make money after an economic downturn - scare up the crowd and start a war - but want something more interesting than military brouhaha to fill the holes in the backyard where we store our peanut butter jars full of pocket change.
Video game producers and movie theatre owners point their investors to the testosterone-filled crowds that buy into the gaming/entertainment sales techniques.
Post-depression/recession responses by the populace tend toward conservative tastes.
Prosperous or poor, people generally view "green" technology with suspicion, too impatient to pay extra to get payoffs later on.
The Internet has shortened our attention spans considerably, turning all of us into city dwellers, operating 24 hours a day.
Information-based economies of scale have proven productive as long as both data mines and rare earth mines continue to open veins and shafts built to last.
Can you make money turning desert into farmland, feeding the starving, clothing the destitute, housing the homeless, making power cheap on or off the grid, and creating limitless amounts of fresh water? Can you do all that with a smile on your face and a sense of humour during the worst setbacks?
Are you still pining for the easy money days of sub-prime mortgage derivatives? Keeping out-of-work physicists on staff - modern-day alchemists - to help create magic formulas to pull gold out of thin air? Scraping by on scrapping the euro, yen and dollar exchange rate in quick succession?
Have you hedged the marijuana crops, looking for any kind of profit to pay your yacht docking fees this year, saving a little loot to fund lobbying efforts for legalisation of one of the world's largest cash crops?
Still not sure about talk of a world currency and where to stash your holdings?
Wondering if global health care coverage is next, assuming governments find a way to resolve profit-sharing with private companies from universal medical coverage for "the people," giving new legal status to the class of global office workers who don't care about national citizenship?
Diversify when times are tough. Dive into deep waters when tides are high. Unless risk is your theme - in that case, keep skimming off the top and move on to the next butter churn before anyone misses the missing cream.
09 March 2010
Internal Investigation
Can you believe a report that internal investigators are going after government employees who abuse their expense reports and/or charge personal items to their "p-cards"? Looks like their free ride days are over, too. A few examples will be set - long prison terms, heavy fines, etc. - so that others can mend their wicked ways and be given a chance to reimburse the government or face similar austerity measures.
Don't say you weren't warned - pay back now or face pay back. Your coworkers are being encouraged to report your abuse within their departments and get rewarded for their "loyalty," including having your job given to those lower down the line.
Don't believe me? You don't have to. We know who you are so we're not sending department-level emails, just quietly talking with those who only cheated a little who can get us the information we need on you, who cheated a lot. When governments are hurting for money, they'll find ways to make you talk ... and pay ... and squeal. Look forward to seeing your profile in the news - mug shots are such pretty pictures of you, don't you think?
Some corporations are said to be following their governments' example, so those of you in the private sector better get your faces cleaned up for your 15 minutes of fame, too. What's the saying? Hmm ... there's never a second chance to make a first impression on those who first saw your image on the front page above the phrase "alleged embezzlement disguised as travel and office expenses." Explain that to your family, will you? Can you?
Don't say you weren't warned - pay back now or face pay back. Your coworkers are being encouraged to report your abuse within their departments and get rewarded for their "loyalty," including having your job given to those lower down the line.
Don't believe me? You don't have to. We know who you are so we're not sending department-level emails, just quietly talking with those who only cheated a little who can get us the information we need on you, who cheated a lot. When governments are hurting for money, they'll find ways to make you talk ... and pay ... and squeal. Look forward to seeing your profile in the news - mug shots are such pretty pictures of you, don't you think?
Some corporations are said to be following their governments' example, so those of you in the private sector better get your faces cleaned up for your 15 minutes of fame, too. What's the saying? Hmm ... there's never a second chance to make a first impression on those who first saw your image on the front page above the phrase "alleged embezzlement disguised as travel and office expenses." Explain that to your family, will you? Can you?
Removal Of This Bear Warning Sign Is Punishable By A Death By Bear Sign
Some friends of mine from the area I know as the Middle East have frequently asked me to divulge the information I have concerning the facts leading up to the events that occurred in the United States of America on the 11th of September, 2001. They are willing to trade concessions for facts. If I will share data, they might nudge Iran into being a little more cooperative internationally.
Having friends from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Syria, Lebanon and Florida who all compiled a compost heap of data for me over the years, I have obtained information that contradicts information that contradicts information that contradicts information that ... well, you get the contradiction, I'm sure.
What is a fact? We've looked at that question many times, haven't we? Perspective, implication, belief - these all influence what you call a fact.
Thus, to divulge information would mean I would have to present facts from one or more perspectives, which would imply a certain image (or images) whose interpretation(s) would depend on your beliefs.
Fact: Many airplanes did not meet their stated flight plan objectives on 9/11/01.
Fact: Many airplanes did meet their stated flight plan objectives on 9/11/01.
Fact: While using 9/11/01 as a rallying cry to drum up support for war, President George W. Bush had not made up his mind whether to attack Iraq.
Fact: The U.S. military and its private contractors had spent months putting assets into place to attack Iraq before President Bush's public announcement to attack.
Fact: One person's terrorist group is another person's fight for the recognition of the right to exist.
Fact: Saudi Arabia is officially a friend of the USA (oil and regional stability speak louder than words).
Fact: Osama bin Laden and his extended family are associated with Saudi Arabia.
Fact: Osama bin Laden has never been officially captured by the USA and Saudi Arabia (or Saudi Arabian families) has never been severely punished for the fact that most of the hijackers of 9/11/01 officially held Saudi citizenship.
Fact: History belongs to the successful aggressor and its allowance of freedom of speech.
Fact: I support both the majority and minorities within a plurality but know who butters my bread; thus, in this case, my hands are tied, my lips are sealed and some facts will go silently with me to my grave. I know this means Iran will have a stronger bargaining position because of my silence but it also means others who have a different perspective on the situation can reveal facts that I cannot if we want to deal frankly with the Iranian leaders in the public arena.
History is rewritten constantly - nothing is permanent. The USA can become a former empire like many European countries or it can find ways to strengthen its longterm global credibility without the use of shortterm military coercion and still remain strong. "Walk softly and carry a big stick" is still apropos. In fact, China is using that phrase against the USA just as the USA used that phrase against others in the past.
Just because you took the bear warning sign down doesn't mean the bears have left the woods. In other words, just because you didn't see a bear warning sign doesn't mean the woods are safe - you're at the mercy of someone who forgot to put up a warning sign, didn't know to put up the warning sign or maliciously removed the warning sign - nothing is what it seems. Live in blissful ignorance, if you want - I look for signs you can see if you know what you're looking for, like footprints in the mud, scratches on trees or scat on the trail.
We may just be states of energy but those states of energy like to hold together in rather consistent forms. Know the consistent patterns of your misbehaving child and you know what that adult child will do later on - ultimately, you are responsible for your offspring and I will hold you accountable because, remember, I don't tolerate intolerance ... in any form. You have the child, you pay the price for the child's behaviour - a simple fact we can both understand and deal with. I'll deal with you later. That's a fact.
Having friends from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Syria, Lebanon and Florida who all compiled a compost heap of data for me over the years, I have obtained information that contradicts information that contradicts information that contradicts information that ... well, you get the contradiction, I'm sure.
What is a fact? We've looked at that question many times, haven't we? Perspective, implication, belief - these all influence what you call a fact.
Thus, to divulge information would mean I would have to present facts from one or more perspectives, which would imply a certain image (or images) whose interpretation(s) would depend on your beliefs.
Fact: Many airplanes did not meet their stated flight plan objectives on 9/11/01.
Fact: Many airplanes did meet their stated flight plan objectives on 9/11/01.
Fact: While using 9/11/01 as a rallying cry to drum up support for war, President George W. Bush had not made up his mind whether to attack Iraq.
Fact: The U.S. military and its private contractors had spent months putting assets into place to attack Iraq before President Bush's public announcement to attack.
Fact: One person's terrorist group is another person's fight for the recognition of the right to exist.
Fact: Saudi Arabia is officially a friend of the USA (oil and regional stability speak louder than words).
Fact: Osama bin Laden and his extended family are associated with Saudi Arabia.
Fact: Osama bin Laden has never been officially captured by the USA and Saudi Arabia (or Saudi Arabian families) has never been severely punished for the fact that most of the hijackers of 9/11/01 officially held Saudi citizenship.
Fact: History belongs to the successful aggressor and its allowance of freedom of speech.
Fact: I support both the majority and minorities within a plurality but know who butters my bread; thus, in this case, my hands are tied, my lips are sealed and some facts will go silently with me to my grave. I know this means Iran will have a stronger bargaining position because of my silence but it also means others who have a different perspective on the situation can reveal facts that I cannot if we want to deal frankly with the Iranian leaders in the public arena.
History is rewritten constantly - nothing is permanent. The USA can become a former empire like many European countries or it can find ways to strengthen its longterm global credibility without the use of shortterm military coercion and still remain strong. "Walk softly and carry a big stick" is still apropos. In fact, China is using that phrase against the USA just as the USA used that phrase against others in the past.
Just because you took the bear warning sign down doesn't mean the bears have left the woods. In other words, just because you didn't see a bear warning sign doesn't mean the woods are safe - you're at the mercy of someone who forgot to put up a warning sign, didn't know to put up the warning sign or maliciously removed the warning sign - nothing is what it seems. Live in blissful ignorance, if you want - I look for signs you can see if you know what you're looking for, like footprints in the mud, scratches on trees or scat on the trail.
We may just be states of energy but those states of energy like to hold together in rather consistent forms. Know the consistent patterns of your misbehaving child and you know what that adult child will do later on - ultimately, you are responsible for your offspring and I will hold you accountable because, remember, I don't tolerate intolerance ... in any form. You have the child, you pay the price for the child's behaviour - a simple fact we can both understand and deal with. I'll deal with you later. That's a fact.
Rock The Casbah or Lock The Taskbar?
She leaned her elbow into my ribs. "You can take me to Chicago for free drinks anytime, dahlin'."
How's your accent? Can you turn a one-syllable word into four or five syllables full of sirr-up (syrup)? She could.
Who could? Camellia can.
As I mentioned a long time ago, I'm tired of the word cougar to describe a woman who has reached the age where she knows what she likes and gets what she wants.
However, Camella likes being called a cougar, so what can I do?
Eyes that flash melt a frozen cube of butter on a stack of pecan pancakes.
Speaking of which, how do you pronounce the word for a nut that is shelled and used to make a favorite Southern pie?
Do you use the pronunciation that implies a tin cylinder that kids used to use when they couldn't find no bathroom around: pee'-can?
Or do you taste the word on your lips before your tongue and vocal chords get all twisted out of shape, rolling the word around before announcing your pronounced enunciation: puh-cawn'-uh?
Put Camellia in the latter category.
Camellia makes fine art and vintage wine look like stick figures and Scope mouthwash.
Camellia has never heard the word "no" in her life and never plans to. She was the belle of the ball at 12, 24, 36, 48 and ... well, that's far enough, isn't it? "After a while, age is such a useless number to describe agelessness, isn't it, sweetie?" That's Camellia leaning over my shoulder and making sure I, as a gentleman, keep her ageless beauty in perspective.
Camellia wants me to take her to Chicago where, she's told, men buy drinks for Southern women just to hear them say a single word.
In other words, I've got to cut this blog entry short so I can pack my J.C Higgins suitcase from Sears, Roebuck and Co., that used to belong to my daddy when he served in the Army and was stationed in Germany, the case covered with faded stickers from places like "Rothenburg o. d. Tauber" and "Dinkelsbühl."
Can't keep a lady waiting! Y'all know what Ah mean, dontcha?
How's your accent? Can you turn a one-syllable word into four or five syllables full of sirr-up (syrup)? She could.
Who could? Camellia can.
As I mentioned a long time ago, I'm tired of the word cougar to describe a woman who has reached the age where she knows what she likes and gets what she wants.
However, Camella likes being called a cougar, so what can I do?
Eyes that flash melt a frozen cube of butter on a stack of pecan pancakes.
Speaking of which, how do you pronounce the word for a nut that is shelled and used to make a favorite Southern pie?
Do you use the pronunciation that implies a tin cylinder that kids used to use when they couldn't find no bathroom around: pee'-can?
Or do you taste the word on your lips before your tongue and vocal chords get all twisted out of shape, rolling the word around before announcing your pronounced enunciation: puh-cawn'-uh?
Put Camellia in the latter category.
Camellia makes fine art and vintage wine look like stick figures and Scope mouthwash.
Camellia has never heard the word "no" in her life and never plans to. She was the belle of the ball at 12, 24, 36, 48 and ... well, that's far enough, isn't it? "After a while, age is such a useless number to describe agelessness, isn't it, sweetie?" That's Camellia leaning over my shoulder and making sure I, as a gentleman, keep her ageless beauty in perspective.
Camellia wants me to take her to Chicago where, she's told, men buy drinks for Southern women just to hear them say a single word.
In other words, I've got to cut this blog entry short so I can pack my J.C Higgins suitcase from Sears, Roebuck and Co., that used to belong to my daddy when he served in the Army and was stationed in Germany, the case covered with faded stickers from places like "Rothenburg o. d. Tauber" and "Dinkelsbühl."
Can't keep a lady waiting! Y'all know what Ah mean, dontcha?
08 March 2010
Do You Care More About Your Species Or Your Country?
Good news for space enthusiasts: China Targets More Space Program Firsts
Bad news for local villagers: Hundreds killed in Nigeria attack
Where will you be on 15th April?: Obama to defend new NASA mission at April summit
What do they think over at Indian Space Research Organisation?
Today, I watched woodpeckers and insects make invisible paths between trees - spring is here in this part of the Northern Hemisphere. Our daffodils, Lenten rose (Helleborus (orientalis or x hybridus)) and marsh marigold (Caltha palustris) finally bloom. Woodland wildflowers are not far behind. Fix the leaking pond liner and my wife will be happy.
Thought for the day: Never take away anyone's hope. That may be all s/he has.
Bad news for local villagers: Hundreds killed in Nigeria attack
Where will you be on 15th April?: Obama to defend new NASA mission at April summit
What do they think over at Indian Space Research Organisation?
Today, I watched woodpeckers and insects make invisible paths between trees - spring is here in this part of the Northern Hemisphere. Our daffodils, Lenten rose (Helleborus (orientalis or x hybridus)) and marsh marigold (Caltha palustris) finally bloom. Woodland wildflowers are not far behind. Fix the leaking pond liner and my wife will be happy.
Thought for the day: Never take away anyone's hope. That may be all s/he has.
07 March 2010
Message Received Loud And Clear
The word has come down the pike. Because the government is not cooperating and the "professor" is still pontificating, proceed with full authority. Bankers, politicians, wealthy religious leaders, entertainment figures, sports "heroes," they're all yours. Show them who's in charge. And the last part of the message, "for those who believe, may God have mercy on your enemies' souls." Time for me to pack up my writing desk and find a place to record the lives of those like John Adams who go from defending domestic terrorism to becoming our new heroes. Maybe you're next to be immortalised?
06 March 2010
"Take back the streets!"
That was the shout I heard last night while walking through downtown of a place misnamed by the post office, I'm told - another blunder by the government.
I turned to see who'd yelled. Nobody, or so it would seem. The sidewalks were empty but the open door of Patrick's told me I might find my answer there.
My wife and I entered the shop. Furniture, fabric remnants, a man at a sewing machine staying busy and the eyes of a guard dog staring at us between the slats of a kid's bunk bed.
Thirty minutes before, we'd sat at a window booth of The Sicilian, a popular gathering place for those who want to be seen and not seen at the same time. My wife ate the daily special while I wolfed down a plate of gyros.
We watched the action outside the window, wondering about the sign we'd been told to fixate on, "Historical Complex."
An Owens Cross Roads police cruiser cruised by cruisingly.
A convertible Mercedes sedan and a Volvo wagon waved their behinds at us from in front of Patrick's.
A Subaru delivered some dry cleaning to Patrick's. At last the signal we'd been given for the go-ahead.
A customer inside The Sicilian kept trying to get my attention. I was supposed to be on a staycation (domestic holiday) and not taking down no notes from no rogue operatives but I listened to what he had to say anyway. He was saying "yes" and "no" out of both sides of his mouth, partly out of fun and partly out of his serious side. His demonstrated intelligence shows he's very useful. His female companion didn't make it clear whether she was a "yes" or a "no."
Our server, a pretty young woman, the perfect example of the hope and verve of the next generation, shared some anecdotes with us. Her missing vest button gave my wife and me some new ideas for passing messages in the future - we'll keep you informed (but not in this blog 'cause it's getting too much attention from "them" right now, if you know what I mean).
We finished our desserts, tiramisu and baklava, and casually wandered over to Patrick's. Following our instincts, we dug through a stack of remnants and found the message my wife had been promised.
Can I get a day off in this business? Apparently not.
We got back in the car and drove around town, looking at the businesses that were out of business, including a coffee shop, a church and a restaurant. When you can't drink caffeine and eat a slice of pie at a place of worship, the world has gone to shit. Of course, that's why we were in the town, to round up some recruits and get updates from some of my buddies from the old days, former playground mates and now generals in their local "armies."
I drove us in a random pattern, finally finding the historical complex and the lettering on the business signs that formed an anagram just for me and the missus.
You belong to any secret societies? I don't. Not that I haven't been invited. Some of the ones you know, like the Masonic folks, have been wanting my membership for a long time.
Thing is, I gotta be neutral. I can't lean one way or the other on account of what I promised the Great Mother and the Great Father a long time ago.
Well, after deciphering the anagram, I found out I was going to get surrounded by some folks looking for any secret signs from me while I was in this town of theirs. Some of them would be Masonic types and some would belong to another secret society I can't mention on account of it don't exist.
We moseyed on through town and looked at more houses and neighbourhoods, getting a feel for the place and what the folks here could offer.
Eventually, we pulled into a parking spot in front of our prearranged meeting place and took care of some official business that's none of your business but we all gotta do it so it's no secret.
It wasn't until I left the place of business and my wife inside talking with the ladies up front that I got the answer to who yelled, "Take back the streets!"
You see, I got friends all over. They tell me they provide me a special security force that nobody can see 'cause although I call myself the messenger boy, they call me their de facto leader 'cause I'm the only one who's got the goods on everybody and the connections what some others only think they got.
So, I sit down in the car and there across the street is the fellow who was sent to tell me it's time to call in all favours. The generals have got their soldiers trained and ready. The IT army has got all the mobile phones bugged and the computers hacked. The domestic help has got all the houses wired for eavesdropping and gotten us copies of all the illegal activity going on with their employers. Our lawyers on retainer have got all the lawsuits lined up and ready to go. Accountants have all the ledgers fully documented.
All I gotta do is give them the signal and the streets will be ours again.
I done told you I'm just an ol' country boy disguised in city clothes. My family history runs deep into the roots of this continent's government and further back to other continents and other eras. My family has agreed that we're going to lead our species to greater causes than any one country or government seeks. We don't care who gets in our way or who falls behind because we're carrying the greatest standard our species has ever seen.
Is it time to take back the streets?
Almost. I've got a few more people who need their chance of "convincing" and if they say "no," then let's get this party started.
Plus, I want another day of staycation before I have to hunker down and work with my computer programmers to put all the controls and switches into manual mode so we can accelerate our plans, which means I'll have to sit at the control station for days on end and make sure every group is acting on their agreed-upon subproject objectives.
Remember, if anyone asks, I'm just the messenger boy. I'm unimportant. Nobody knows who I really am. If anyone gets in your way, you have our various groups at your disposal to do as you see fit. If any organisation - corporation, government, etc. - gets in your way, we can motivate whole groups to act at once, including new methods for tectonic plate activity (some of our scientists say they can activate volcanoes but I think it's still in the theory stage at this point), atmosphere manipulation and other large-scale demonstrations of what it takes to bring a whole society to a halt. However, I suggest we stick to targeted economic disaster as a motivational tool because ecological disaster affects both sides.
The fate of our species is in our hands. Let's make sure our actions are meticulously thought-out and taken seriously but with a sense of humour. Some of you will jump early and that's okay. We still support freedom of choice. I recommend that most of us hold back until the moment is right.
I suggest we all take a couple of days to enjoy life on this planet to understand what we're about to do. If you get too tense in anticipation, you lose your edge when you're needed most.
By the way, many of you have your day in the limelight coming to you, according to the Book of the Future. So don't despair.
I still prefer anonymity, using a pen name for my byline. After all, this is all about you and our species, not me. I just happen to be standing or sitting here in this spot. Someone will take over for me when my turn is up. It's what I've always wanted to happen, training my replacement(s) to excel, finding new avenues to explore that'll open their eyes to fresh ideas for our species to spread across the universe.
I turned to see who'd yelled. Nobody, or so it would seem. The sidewalks were empty but the open door of Patrick's told me I might find my answer there.
My wife and I entered the shop. Furniture, fabric remnants, a man at a sewing machine staying busy and the eyes of a guard dog staring at us between the slats of a kid's bunk bed.
Thirty minutes before, we'd sat at a window booth of The Sicilian, a popular gathering place for those who want to be seen and not seen at the same time. My wife ate the daily special while I wolfed down a plate of gyros.
We watched the action outside the window, wondering about the sign we'd been told to fixate on, "Historical Complex."
An Owens Cross Roads police cruiser cruised by cruisingly.
A convertible Mercedes sedan and a Volvo wagon waved their behinds at us from in front of Patrick's.
A Subaru delivered some dry cleaning to Patrick's. At last the signal we'd been given for the go-ahead.
A customer inside The Sicilian kept trying to get my attention. I was supposed to be on a staycation (domestic holiday) and not taking down no notes from no rogue operatives but I listened to what he had to say anyway. He was saying "yes" and "no" out of both sides of his mouth, partly out of fun and partly out of his serious side. His demonstrated intelligence shows he's very useful. His female companion didn't make it clear whether she was a "yes" or a "no."
Our server, a pretty young woman, the perfect example of the hope and verve of the next generation, shared some anecdotes with us. Her missing vest button gave my wife and me some new ideas for passing messages in the future - we'll keep you informed (but not in this blog 'cause it's getting too much attention from "them" right now, if you know what I mean).
We finished our desserts, tiramisu and baklava, and casually wandered over to Patrick's. Following our instincts, we dug through a stack of remnants and found the message my wife had been promised.
Can I get a day off in this business? Apparently not.
We got back in the car and drove around town, looking at the businesses that were out of business, including a coffee shop, a church and a restaurant. When you can't drink caffeine and eat a slice of pie at a place of worship, the world has gone to shit. Of course, that's why we were in the town, to round up some recruits and get updates from some of my buddies from the old days, former playground mates and now generals in their local "armies."
I drove us in a random pattern, finally finding the historical complex and the lettering on the business signs that formed an anagram just for me and the missus.
You belong to any secret societies? I don't. Not that I haven't been invited. Some of the ones you know, like the Masonic folks, have been wanting my membership for a long time.
Thing is, I gotta be neutral. I can't lean one way or the other on account of what I promised the Great Mother and the Great Father a long time ago.
Well, after deciphering the anagram, I found out I was going to get surrounded by some folks looking for any secret signs from me while I was in this town of theirs. Some of them would be Masonic types and some would belong to another secret society I can't mention on account of it don't exist.
We moseyed on through town and looked at more houses and neighbourhoods, getting a feel for the place and what the folks here could offer.
Eventually, we pulled into a parking spot in front of our prearranged meeting place and took care of some official business that's none of your business but we all gotta do it so it's no secret.
It wasn't until I left the place of business and my wife inside talking with the ladies up front that I got the answer to who yelled, "Take back the streets!"
You see, I got friends all over. They tell me they provide me a special security force that nobody can see 'cause although I call myself the messenger boy, they call me their de facto leader 'cause I'm the only one who's got the goods on everybody and the connections what some others only think they got.
So, I sit down in the car and there across the street is the fellow who was sent to tell me it's time to call in all favours. The generals have got their soldiers trained and ready. The IT army has got all the mobile phones bugged and the computers hacked. The domestic help has got all the houses wired for eavesdropping and gotten us copies of all the illegal activity going on with their employers. Our lawyers on retainer have got all the lawsuits lined up and ready to go. Accountants have all the ledgers fully documented.
All I gotta do is give them the signal and the streets will be ours again.
I done told you I'm just an ol' country boy disguised in city clothes. My family history runs deep into the roots of this continent's government and further back to other continents and other eras. My family has agreed that we're going to lead our species to greater causes than any one country or government seeks. We don't care who gets in our way or who falls behind because we're carrying the greatest standard our species has ever seen.
Is it time to take back the streets?
Almost. I've got a few more people who need their chance of "convincing" and if they say "no," then let's get this party started.
Plus, I want another day of staycation before I have to hunker down and work with my computer programmers to put all the controls and switches into manual mode so we can accelerate our plans, which means I'll have to sit at the control station for days on end and make sure every group is acting on their agreed-upon subproject objectives.
Remember, if anyone asks, I'm just the messenger boy. I'm unimportant. Nobody knows who I really am. If anyone gets in your way, you have our various groups at your disposal to do as you see fit. If any organisation - corporation, government, etc. - gets in your way, we can motivate whole groups to act at once, including new methods for tectonic plate activity (some of our scientists say they can activate volcanoes but I think it's still in the theory stage at this point), atmosphere manipulation and other large-scale demonstrations of what it takes to bring a whole society to a halt. However, I suggest we stick to targeted economic disaster as a motivational tool because ecological disaster affects both sides.
The fate of our species is in our hands. Let's make sure our actions are meticulously thought-out and taken seriously but with a sense of humour. Some of you will jump early and that's okay. We still support freedom of choice. I recommend that most of us hold back until the moment is right.
I suggest we all take a couple of days to enjoy life on this planet to understand what we're about to do. If you get too tense in anticipation, you lose your edge when you're needed most.
By the way, many of you have your day in the limelight coming to you, according to the Book of the Future. So don't despair.
I still prefer anonymity, using a pen name for my byline. After all, this is all about you and our species, not me. I just happen to be standing or sitting here in this spot. Someone will take over for me when my turn is up. It's what I've always wanted to happen, training my replacement(s) to excel, finding new avenues to explore that'll open their eyes to fresh ideas for our species to spread across the universe.
05 March 2010
Who Said The "A" Side Of The Record Was Most Important?
One thing I forgot to note, the side "B" part of the message I was supposed to report. Here 'tis, verbatim and uncoded: it's time to take the information from the domestic help, including landscaping, nannies, nail salon, tailoring, basement sweat shop, etc., about whose taxes were not paid before the new law went into effect and report their employers to the news media; however, if you want to "negotiate" a deal with the employers and/or the employees for not reporting the data, it's up to you - use the prearranged "no holds barred" thumb screw simulation maneuver this time, too (for those who don't remember, it means to show the electronic data file you have built on your "customers" and their families/customers) - as long as you report at least one of them within the next two weeks to counter the hopes of those who think they can hide their illegal activities under the new law.
Now, back to my staycation and contemplating the new parts of the Book of Future that I haven't revealed yet. Exciting stuff, I tell you! When you give people the opportunity to empower themselves all at once, the concept of a New World Order is beyond comprehension. Too bad I didn't ask for a leadership role in this next phase of our species' history but at least I assigned myself the role as one of the writers ... and guess who decides how history is written? Would you rather be the toppled leader or the person who comfortably sits and writes about the ebb and flow of history, while scripting a byline memorable for all times? Few get to be both; that's why I'd rather shake this pen around than an etched sword that'll rust, the sword and the owner forgotten in the rewriting of the historical fiction that records our next epic adventures. Live to write another day, that's one of my mottoes scratched as a mantra on my daily sand mandalas.
Now, back to my staycation and contemplating the new parts of the Book of Future that I haven't revealed yet. Exciting stuff, I tell you! When you give people the opportunity to empower themselves all at once, the concept of a New World Order is beyond comprehension. Too bad I didn't ask for a leadership role in this next phase of our species' history but at least I assigned myself the role as one of the writers ... and guess who decides how history is written? Would you rather be the toppled leader or the person who comfortably sits and writes about the ebb and flow of history, while scripting a byline memorable for all times? Few get to be both; that's why I'd rather shake this pen around than an etched sword that'll rust, the sword and the owner forgotten in the rewriting of the historical fiction that records our next epic adventures. Live to write another day, that's one of my mottoes scratched as a mantra on my daily sand mandalas.
Crowning An Imperial Gallon
When you hang out your shingle as a telegraph operator, expect to read messages you can never repeat because no one would believe you.
Yesterday, as an instance.
I walked out to my '95 325i parked in the driveway and noted a special set of cat paw prints on the bonnet. According to the cat paw print language, I was supposed to pick up a science-related magazine in the lobby of my dentist's office, wait for the signal I would receive in Morse code from the leg swings of another patient in the lobby and go to the sequence of page and paragraph numbers the Morse code would tell me.
Sure enough, the message in the magazine was there. It told me that I was supposed to drive to the Dodge petrol station and get a message written in invisible ink on the back of the receipt printed at the pump.
Invisible ink? Are you kidding? Is this grade school again?
Wearing my special shades sold to me by a temporary employee of Wal-Mart who is a special agent for the shadow government we all know exists and doesn't exist (now you know why I keep telling you I do and don't exist), I held the receipt up to the sunlight and read the message.
Hot humping dog! Turns out I had received a receipt with reddish-pink ink stains at Arby's from a teenage agent named Marisa and didn't even know it. So, I dug through the garbage, found the Arby's receipt and read the message I was supposed to have read but missed. Will at the Blue Plate had double-verified the message contents for me in his conversation with two lovely ladies at the table near my wife and me.
What did the original message say?
I was supposed to attend a secret rally meeting hidden within the student protests taking place in California that would have revealed who was behind the Taiwanese quake. I went back through the seismic data from Taiwan, Missouri and Chile, as instructed, and plotted the discussion points for the secret rally meeting.
I hate all this duck-and-clover, cloak-and-dagger stuff. I'm a simple country boy who was accidentally raised in the suburban labyrinth of commercialised subliminal messaging. When can I retire from getting exposed to adverts meant for the disposable income kinder?
Anyway, the secret rally notes were published last night and delivered to me on a roll of toilet paper I bought several weeks ago at the dollar discount store that went out of business in January. Yeah, when time and space no longer have any meaning, you get messages telegraphed to you anytimeanyplace.
Using my old analemmic sundial, I waited until the proper time this morning to see which part of the message I'm supposed to deliver to you right now.
Based on the ambient atmospheric conditions in a tiny Chinese village you've never heard of but will produce a great hero of a renewed warrior class, here is what I have for you:
Several groups are building an alliance, even though every individual group's aims would appear to make the groups archenemies of one another. They are basing their joint goals on the fact the leader they have pointed their hatred toward is not completely a member of any one of their groups and thus an enemy of all of them. But they are not after that leader. Instead, that leader is merely a symbol they can point to that any agents or spies within their ranks will think they're after. Ultimately, they have another goal - to incite an attack by the state and national militaries against several of their groups at once, thus proving that their anti-government message is real and attracting a flash mob to their cause. The groups are encouraging "respectable" organisations - liberal, conservative, Greens, Socialist Democrats, Democratic Socialists, Republicans, Democrats, Proletarians, Communists, Labour, Tories, Sinn Féin, Theocratic, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, deist, atheist, naturalist, agnostic, agrarian, metropolitan, technopop, goth, apocalyptic, utopian - to spread fear and uncertainty so that any perceived negative action by the established governments anywhere in the world will solidify the alliance and unite them with others instantly. The alliance has already sworn to secrecy members within local governments and of both military leadership and soldier classes, who have promised they will, when the time is right, push their military units into the milieu.
Do I believe any of this? I imagine there are more than a few who do, based on what I've seen of those who are "testing" our government's defenses to figure out which police and military units they can get to react the most. At the same time, I have a lot of friends who work for or in the military and I don't see them doing anything other than making a living and providing for their families, content to sit at home and watch TV, surf the Internet or play video games when not engaged in community activities associated with their family members.
However, I'm a telegraph operator. I don't have to believe anything I see. I just tap out the text no matter what it says and let everyone see what's going down the wire.
Today's a beautiful day. Think I'll wash the car and erase the paw prints. I don't want someone to think I do or do not support the messages written in dirt on my windscreen. I'm just a regular taxpaying guy who's thinking about taking his shingle down before he reads something he's not prepared to know about. All I ever wanted was to find a way to get our species off this planet and what I've found is that there are those who use my desire to their personal advantage, which distorts and takes away from our ability to establish space colonies. If someone is taking away my dream, and not pointing to a plausible solution, to whom do I turn to help me fulfill it? China? Private space entrepreneurs? If so, does that mean that those of us in the shadow government will finally decide to sell out the United States and completely break it into parts owned by more responsible governments and corporations, taking away any semblance of "power of the people" the Americans thought they had?
Good thing this is a fictional blog entry and not related to the real world, eh? Or is it? Only the shadow knows for sure - isn't that what another fictional tale said? Would you recognise a software or hardware keyboard logger if you saw one? Do you know who's going after and collecting valuable data on the customers of lobbyists? Are you raising your children to be the next ice farmers on Earth's moon or are you preparing for Farmageddon, instead, when the corporations control all farms and all seed production and you have to register the window garden in your flat?
I'm a practical joker, a writer of funny "what if" short stories who takes all the snippets of conversation, all the illogical adverts, all the autobiographical nonsense we put out and weaves an inside-out, realistic model, if you know what you're looking at (behind the "at," as my English teacher would say). We've moved from the dawning of the Age of Aquarius to the dawning of Viagra Agrarians. Welcome to the new age that'll be old news before your third facelift has healed.
I'm taking a few days off from writing this blog. Your life stories are interesting and even though I know I only exist in the context of social situations and my local environment, I'm taking some time away from you folks to let myself breathe fresh air and be me who is not me away from you for a while.
Yesterday, as an instance.
I walked out to my '95 325i parked in the driveway and noted a special set of cat paw prints on the bonnet. According to the cat paw print language, I was supposed to pick up a science-related magazine in the lobby of my dentist's office, wait for the signal I would receive in Morse code from the leg swings of another patient in the lobby and go to the sequence of page and paragraph numbers the Morse code would tell me.
Sure enough, the message in the magazine was there. It told me that I was supposed to drive to the Dodge petrol station and get a message written in invisible ink on the back of the receipt printed at the pump.
Invisible ink? Are you kidding? Is this grade school again?
Wearing my special shades sold to me by a temporary employee of Wal-Mart who is a special agent for the shadow government we all know exists and doesn't exist (now you know why I keep telling you I do and don't exist), I held the receipt up to the sunlight and read the message.
Hot humping dog! Turns out I had received a receipt with reddish-pink ink stains at Arby's from a teenage agent named Marisa and didn't even know it. So, I dug through the garbage, found the Arby's receipt and read the message I was supposed to have read but missed. Will at the Blue Plate had double-verified the message contents for me in his conversation with two lovely ladies at the table near my wife and me.
What did the original message say?
I was supposed to attend a secret rally meeting hidden within the student protests taking place in California that would have revealed who was behind the Taiwanese quake. I went back through the seismic data from Taiwan, Missouri and Chile, as instructed, and plotted the discussion points for the secret rally meeting.
I hate all this duck-and-clover, cloak-and-dagger stuff. I'm a simple country boy who was accidentally raised in the suburban labyrinth of commercialised subliminal messaging. When can I retire from getting exposed to adverts meant for the disposable income kinder?
Anyway, the secret rally notes were published last night and delivered to me on a roll of toilet paper I bought several weeks ago at the dollar discount store that went out of business in January. Yeah, when time and space no longer have any meaning, you get messages telegraphed to you anytimeanyplace.
Using my old analemmic sundial, I waited until the proper time this morning to see which part of the message I'm supposed to deliver to you right now.
Based on the ambient atmospheric conditions in a tiny Chinese village you've never heard of but will produce a great hero of a renewed warrior class, here is what I have for you:
Several groups are building an alliance, even though every individual group's aims would appear to make the groups archenemies of one another. They are basing their joint goals on the fact the leader they have pointed their hatred toward is not completely a member of any one of their groups and thus an enemy of all of them. But they are not after that leader. Instead, that leader is merely a symbol they can point to that any agents or spies within their ranks will think they're after. Ultimately, they have another goal - to incite an attack by the state and national militaries against several of their groups at once, thus proving that their anti-government message is real and attracting a flash mob to their cause. The groups are encouraging "respectable" organisations - liberal, conservative, Greens, Socialist Democrats, Democratic Socialists, Republicans, Democrats, Proletarians, Communists, Labour, Tories, Sinn Féin, Theocratic, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, deist, atheist, naturalist, agnostic, agrarian, metropolitan, technopop, goth, apocalyptic, utopian - to spread fear and uncertainty so that any perceived negative action by the established governments anywhere in the world will solidify the alliance and unite them with others instantly. The alliance has already sworn to secrecy members within local governments and of both military leadership and soldier classes, who have promised they will, when the time is right, push their military units into the milieu.
Do I believe any of this? I imagine there are more than a few who do, based on what I've seen of those who are "testing" our government's defenses to figure out which police and military units they can get to react the most. At the same time, I have a lot of friends who work for or in the military and I don't see them doing anything other than making a living and providing for their families, content to sit at home and watch TV, surf the Internet or play video games when not engaged in community activities associated with their family members.
However, I'm a telegraph operator. I don't have to believe anything I see. I just tap out the text no matter what it says and let everyone see what's going down the wire.
Today's a beautiful day. Think I'll wash the car and erase the paw prints. I don't want someone to think I do or do not support the messages written in dirt on my windscreen. I'm just a regular taxpaying guy who's thinking about taking his shingle down before he reads something he's not prepared to know about. All I ever wanted was to find a way to get our species off this planet and what I've found is that there are those who use my desire to their personal advantage, which distorts and takes away from our ability to establish space colonies. If someone is taking away my dream, and not pointing to a plausible solution, to whom do I turn to help me fulfill it? China? Private space entrepreneurs? If so, does that mean that those of us in the shadow government will finally decide to sell out the United States and completely break it into parts owned by more responsible governments and corporations, taking away any semblance of "power of the people" the Americans thought they had?
Good thing this is a fictional blog entry and not related to the real world, eh? Or is it? Only the shadow knows for sure - isn't that what another fictional tale said? Would you recognise a software or hardware keyboard logger if you saw one? Do you know who's going after and collecting valuable data on the customers of lobbyists? Are you raising your children to be the next ice farmers on Earth's moon or are you preparing for Farmageddon, instead, when the corporations control all farms and all seed production and you have to register the window garden in your flat?
I'm a practical joker, a writer of funny "what if" short stories who takes all the snippets of conversation, all the illogical adverts, all the autobiographical nonsense we put out and weaves an inside-out, realistic model, if you know what you're looking at (behind the "at," as my English teacher would say). We've moved from the dawning of the Age of Aquarius to the dawning of Viagra Agrarians. Welcome to the new age that'll be old news before your third facelift has healed.
I'm taking a few days off from writing this blog. Your life stories are interesting and even though I know I only exist in the context of social situations and my local environment, I'm taking some time away from you folks to let myself breathe fresh air and be me who is not me away from you for a while.
04 March 2010
International Women's Day
Where will you be on Sunday, 8th March 2010, while celebrating International Women's Day? Helping the Chilean president, perhaps? Seeing if your position has changed on the list of the 100 most powerful women?
Planning A Move To India Anytime Soon?
Job prospects are good in AsiaPac, especially India this year:
India to lead salary hikes in Asia-Pacific
I Spit In Your Stew
Nothing like a little Irish humour to lighten the mood:
Kevin Myers: While I'm paying for the education of young people, I want to see them learn useful skills
Kevin Myers: While I'm paying for the education of young people, I want to see them learn useful skills
The Faithful Old One
During an emergency tribal council meeting today, we listened to many voices, both here and from the Great Beyond.
One voice stood out more than others.
The Faithful Old One.
The Faithful Old One has watched hundreds of full moons.
The Faithful Old One, or FOO as we like to say, our sense of humour strong among our people, told us to open a website and observe the Old Faithful Geyser webcam.
FOO asked us what we learned by looking at steam rising out of the ground or occasional cross-country skiers passing through.
We did not answer because we knew FOO knew more foo-foo than we thought we knew. We turned to FOO and listened.
"My people, my brothers and my sisters, we gather here today because the old ones like myself have seen the same great vision. Deganawidah has appeared in our dreams and will return soon. Deganawidah has asked us to open our hearts and feel the great pain growing in our land. Deganawidah has shared the vision of his vision with us.
"The Great Mother and the Great Father have awoken. We have not seen them in many generations. They do not visit us unless they see we have become blind and helpless like a newborn bird. Deganawidah has foretold this coming.
"We are the hope that the people of Turtle Island are looking for. It is to us they turn in this last light of dusk before the darkness of a false spring covers the land.
"The government of the white people is going to call a council meeting of their own soon. Our scouts have hidden in the white people's tribes for many years now and we know what the government of the white people does not know. The white people's government council meeting is to be the war cry for the uprising of the white people's tribes. Tribes, though, composed of many faces - white, yellow, brown, black, and yes, even red.
"To us, Deganawidah has turned. To us, the Great Father and the Great Mother have cast their eyes. We are the generation that is to lead us all, the living and the dead, to cleanse the blood of hatred and fear from our bodies and raise the pipe of peace. No more lies and false tales that the artificial technology of white man has bred into them. No more broken treaties because of greed driven by fear.
"My brothers and my sisters, today you have seen the vision of the old ones. Many seasons have passed while the Great Father and the Great Mother slept during the decline of our people on this land. Now, they are awake and are feeding our weakened body of a baby bird.
"We are the Owl. We are the Eagle. We are the Hawk. We are the Crow. We are every Bird of the Air and of the Ground. Wisely, let us gather here once or twice more and gain strength. Then, when the time is right, we will know and we will save the people of this land from self-deceit.
"We will take flight into the air and we will walk across the land. We will not make a lot of empty noise. Silently, we will move into position and take control from the leaders and followers who have lost their way."
The Faithful Old One sat down. The council did not speak. No words were necessary. In our hearts and in our thoughts we knew FOO had spoken what we already knew was true.
Another old one stood up and sent us out with these words:
One voice stood out more than others.
The Faithful Old One.
The Faithful Old One has watched hundreds of full moons.
The Faithful Old One, or FOO as we like to say, our sense of humour strong among our people, told us to open a website and observe the Old Faithful Geyser webcam.
FOO asked us what we learned by looking at steam rising out of the ground or occasional cross-country skiers passing through.
We did not answer because we knew FOO knew more foo-foo than we thought we knew. We turned to FOO and listened.
"My people, my brothers and my sisters, we gather here today because the old ones like myself have seen the same great vision. Deganawidah has appeared in our dreams and will return soon. Deganawidah has asked us to open our hearts and feel the great pain growing in our land. Deganawidah has shared the vision of his vision with us.
"The Great Mother and the Great Father have awoken. We have not seen them in many generations. They do not visit us unless they see we have become blind and helpless like a newborn bird. Deganawidah has foretold this coming.
"We are the hope that the people of Turtle Island are looking for. It is to us they turn in this last light of dusk before the darkness of a false spring covers the land.
"The government of the white people is going to call a council meeting of their own soon. Our scouts have hidden in the white people's tribes for many years now and we know what the government of the white people does not know. The white people's government council meeting is to be the war cry for the uprising of the white people's tribes. Tribes, though, composed of many faces - white, yellow, brown, black, and yes, even red.
"To us, Deganawidah has turned. To us, the Great Father and the Great Mother have cast their eyes. We are the generation that is to lead us all, the living and the dead, to cleanse the blood of hatred and fear from our bodies and raise the pipe of peace. No more lies and false tales that the artificial technology of white man has bred into them. No more broken treaties because of greed driven by fear.
"My brothers and my sisters, today you have seen the vision of the old ones. Many seasons have passed while the Great Father and the Great Mother slept during the decline of our people on this land. Now, they are awake and are feeding our weakened body of a baby bird.
"We are the Owl. We are the Eagle. We are the Hawk. We are the Crow. We are every Bird of the Air and of the Ground. Wisely, let us gather here once or twice more and gain strength. Then, when the time is right, we will know and we will save the people of this land from self-deceit.
"We will take flight into the air and we will walk across the land. We will not make a lot of empty noise. Silently, we will move into position and take control from the leaders and followers who have lost their way."
The Faithful Old One sat down. The council did not speak. No words were necessary. In our hearts and in our thoughts we knew FOO had spoken what we already knew was true.
Another old one stood up and sent us out with these words:
The time has come. The inhabitants of Turtle Island and their followers around the world need us to teach them how to live. Our path has come full circle. Time for us to lead them to the Great Council Meeting, with room for all, and listen to what the Great Father and Great Mother have to say. Wisdom is listening, not talking. Wisdom is acting on the vision all can see. Go home and prepare yourself for the personal version of the vision that will reveal itself to you. Every one of us has a special set of skills and personality traits, and every one of us is needed to make the Great Vision a reality. Together, the emotions in your heart and the vision in your thoughts are true. Time for the truth to live with us in peace, joy and laughter once again.
Another Sleepless Night?
I tried to sleep last night but I didn't fall asleep until 5 this morning. Tonight, it appears I'll have the same trouble getting a full night's sleep. It should only matter to me why, but it doesn't.
I am bothered because I do not see enough leadership in concert with itself - where are those who should be talking over and converting the naysayers to show we will get through this economic downturn?
In communities that have lost their major source of employment, where are the leaders who are putting the idle to work on local problems, assigning projects to able bodied/minded citizens without waiting for government handouts?
My friends, we are at war with apathy and despondency!
Fill your thoughts with plans for action!
Let's pick up hammers and sewing needles to repair one another's lives!
Let's pool our pennies and plant community gardens!
We do not need talk show hosts and government administrators to tell us what to do. We already know what we need to do. If a community loses its livelihood, then why not consider a mass refusal to pay for mortgages no one can afford anymore - save the community and sacrifice the bank. Call it the bailout plan for the rest of us. Revive the pioneer spirit and show we have the resolve, the fortitude and the initiative to start over on our own terms.
I'm tired of empty government promises. I'm tired of paying taxes for things I don't need. I don't want to hear another word from another politician telling me what s/he's going to do with the government debt being accumulated for me. Stop doing me a favour by borrowing against the future!
I'm a law-abiding citizen but I refuse the idea that I have to buy mandatory health insurance. I don't force people to buy lottery tickets twice a week, exercise three times a week or smoke cigarettes every day. If health care coverage is bankrupting companies, then as company owners let's band together and force medical providers to find creative solutions to provide us affordable products and services we choose to purchase.
You are my people. We belong to the same species. We have no rights at birth because we did not choose to be born. We are born free and we die free. Our families choose how to treat our freedom until (or if) we can live on our own and make personal choices about freedom. Our families come in different shapes and sizes - genetic, village/community/subculture, state/culture, world.
I am a middle-aged man who has grown tired of social dogma, including the remnants of previous civilisations dragging muck into this moment. I have a last name, history says, because monarchies wanted to collect poll taxes from the people.
Taxes, tributes, call them what you want, but somewhere along the way the rich and powerful decided it was a good idea to take from others to build stable networks of small families so the rich and powerful could stay that way without fear of peasant uprisings.
I am tired and I will not sleep tonight. I am an old man in some ways and a small child in other ways. In all ways, I am tired of listening to the whining and complaining, including my own. Thousands of years of positive solutions to choose from and we keep repeating the bad habits of old.
Irrational exuberance - perhaps too much display of that habit should land one in jail for life. The same for the opposite - doom-and-gloomers get a life sentence for seeing the worst and not offering a rational solution for getting us to a better state of existence. Google, Apple and Dr. Doom - you've been warned! LOL
A society that requires a solution too complex for all but a few of us to understand is a society that may have reached the end of its usefulness. Perhaps. I don't know. I am too tired to see clearly right now and will not rush to judgment about what tiredness makes me think of our species at this moment.
I am tired and in my tiredness I worry. I see many examples of positive behaviour but I don't know if it's enough to overcome a strengthening undercurrent of discontent and malaise. Our subcultures come and go, expanding and contracting, and although we know how to use mass media to build and shrink popular movements, sometimes mob mentality takes over and overwhelms the ability of local scene setters to maintain control.
The world will not come to an end tomorrow or anytime soon, as we know, but uncomfortable situations can make us wish for an end or a new beginning.
Tomorrow, I will consult the Book of the Future and see where we're headed. I'm tired of all the noise and confusion the general news media is broadcasting. It's time I take the reins in this imaginary parallel universe and show us where we'd be headed if this blog was our real world. I have no vested interests to protect other than our species and getting some of our eggs out of this basket called Earth.
Yes, to copy a beaten-down quote, I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore but I'm too tired to tell you tonight what it is we need to do to get us to the next moment. Our society's not as complex as we think, especially if we break it down to subcultures for which we can identify problems and leaders to coach or mentor us to find solutions to satisfy us in most if not all walks of life (because we know that subcultures have sub-subcultures and families within families and individuals within families). Generic, generalised problem solvers and their convoluted platitudes I don't need!
Time to throw this body in bed, stare at the ceiling for a few hours, and watch the light of the moon pass tree shadows across the window until sunrise finds me looking at pencil shavings.
I am bothered because I do not see enough leadership in concert with itself - where are those who should be talking over and converting the naysayers to show we will get through this economic downturn?
In communities that have lost their major source of employment, where are the leaders who are putting the idle to work on local problems, assigning projects to able bodied/minded citizens without waiting for government handouts?
My friends, we are at war with apathy and despondency!
Fill your thoughts with plans for action!
Let's pick up hammers and sewing needles to repair one another's lives!
Let's pool our pennies and plant community gardens!
We do not need talk show hosts and government administrators to tell us what to do. We already know what we need to do. If a community loses its livelihood, then why not consider a mass refusal to pay for mortgages no one can afford anymore - save the community and sacrifice the bank. Call it the bailout plan for the rest of us. Revive the pioneer spirit and show we have the resolve, the fortitude and the initiative to start over on our own terms.
I'm tired of empty government promises. I'm tired of paying taxes for things I don't need. I don't want to hear another word from another politician telling me what s/he's going to do with the government debt being accumulated for me. Stop doing me a favour by borrowing against the future!
I'm a law-abiding citizen but I refuse the idea that I have to buy mandatory health insurance. I don't force people to buy lottery tickets twice a week, exercise three times a week or smoke cigarettes every day. If health care coverage is bankrupting companies, then as company owners let's band together and force medical providers to find creative solutions to provide us affordable products and services we choose to purchase.
You are my people. We belong to the same species. We have no rights at birth because we did not choose to be born. We are born free and we die free. Our families choose how to treat our freedom until (or if) we can live on our own and make personal choices about freedom. Our families come in different shapes and sizes - genetic, village/community/subculture, state/culture, world.
I am a middle-aged man who has grown tired of social dogma, including the remnants of previous civilisations dragging muck into this moment. I have a last name, history says, because monarchies wanted to collect poll taxes from the people.
Taxes, tributes, call them what you want, but somewhere along the way the rich and powerful decided it was a good idea to take from others to build stable networks of small families so the rich and powerful could stay that way without fear of peasant uprisings.
I am tired and I will not sleep tonight. I am an old man in some ways and a small child in other ways. In all ways, I am tired of listening to the whining and complaining, including my own. Thousands of years of positive solutions to choose from and we keep repeating the bad habits of old.
Irrational exuberance - perhaps too much display of that habit should land one in jail for life. The same for the opposite - doom-and-gloomers get a life sentence for seeing the worst and not offering a rational solution for getting us to a better state of existence. Google, Apple and Dr. Doom - you've been warned! LOL
A society that requires a solution too complex for all but a few of us to understand is a society that may have reached the end of its usefulness. Perhaps. I don't know. I am too tired to see clearly right now and will not rush to judgment about what tiredness makes me think of our species at this moment.
I am tired and in my tiredness I worry. I see many examples of positive behaviour but I don't know if it's enough to overcome a strengthening undercurrent of discontent and malaise. Our subcultures come and go, expanding and contracting, and although we know how to use mass media to build and shrink popular movements, sometimes mob mentality takes over and overwhelms the ability of local scene setters to maintain control.
The world will not come to an end tomorrow or anytime soon, as we know, but uncomfortable situations can make us wish for an end or a new beginning.
Tomorrow, I will consult the Book of the Future and see where we're headed. I'm tired of all the noise and confusion the general news media is broadcasting. It's time I take the reins in this imaginary parallel universe and show us where we'd be headed if this blog was our real world. I have no vested interests to protect other than our species and getting some of our eggs out of this basket called Earth.
Yes, to copy a beaten-down quote, I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore but I'm too tired to tell you tonight what it is we need to do to get us to the next moment. Our society's not as complex as we think, especially if we break it down to subcultures for which we can identify problems and leaders to coach or mentor us to find solutions to satisfy us in most if not all walks of life (because we know that subcultures have sub-subcultures and families within families and individuals within families). Generic, generalised problem solvers and their convoluted platitudes I don't need!
Time to throw this body in bed, stare at the ceiling for a few hours, and watch the light of the moon pass tree shadows across the window until sunrise finds me looking at pencil shavings.
03 March 2010
Who's Piloting This Ship?
Unraveling around the edges, are we? First, my wife's sorority/fraternity, Zeta Tau Alpha, wins the stepping contest and then has to share their award. Second, California universities show unrest is rising among our college-age youth.
We need real leaders to step forward and take control, not grandstanding that's leading us into a middle-class civil war that will start with skirmishes and quickly get out of hand.
Now is not the time to rush to force more change on the people, in United States or anywhere else.
Tens of millions out of work can make for a mess if we push too hard. Don't set the spark on the campfire when others are looking for any sign, intentional smoke signal or not, to go on the warpath.
I sit here, watching the Tennessee-Arkansas basketball game and see young men dedicated to teamwork. Let's use them as examples of hope for the future.
Yes, we can be frustrated. Yes, we can feel like our lives are out of control. But TOGETHER we work things out, one change at a time.
We need real leaders to step forward and take control, not grandstanding that's leading us into a middle-class civil war that will start with skirmishes and quickly get out of hand.
Now is not the time to rush to force more change on the people, in United States or anywhere else.
Tens of millions out of work can make for a mess if we push too hard. Don't set the spark on the campfire when others are looking for any sign, intentional smoke signal or not, to go on the warpath.
I sit here, watching the Tennessee-Arkansas basketball game and see young men dedicated to teamwork. Let's use them as examples of hope for the future.
Yes, we can be frustrated. Yes, we can feel like our lives are out of control. But TOGETHER we work things out, one change at a time.
02 March 2010
One Last Look
Random noise is good - helps us see the big picture:
Now I can get back to whittlin' and put this computer aside.
Now I can get back to whittlin' and put this computer aside.
Ask Somebody Who Knows
Bought a bag of animal feed at C.T. Garvin's recently and picked up a copy of the 2010 Old Farmer's Almanac.
We place the center of our thoughts on various topics - sports, technology, politics, fashion, religion, food, business.
What about farming and old-fashioned folk wisdom? Might make us a little more tolerant of each other and less prone to resort to citified extremism, if we did.
Some of us are big picture thinkers, like Kem Pinegar who I saw with her daughter at Lowe's. Which big picture, though? Higher education?
Time for this country boy to sit a spell and whittle another wooden somethin'. This here Internet has gotten too uppity for his tastes lately. The wind in the trees and the voices of the woodland creatures tell just as good a story as them high-tech jawgobblers. The creatures sure won't poison the whole woods with funny-sounding chemical names, that's for sure.
See you later, alligator. After while, crocodile. I'll make like an amoeba and split.
We place the center of our thoughts on various topics - sports, technology, politics, fashion, religion, food, business.
What about farming and old-fashioned folk wisdom? Might make us a little more tolerant of each other and less prone to resort to citified extremism, if we did.
Some of us are big picture thinkers, like Kem Pinegar who I saw with her daughter at Lowe's. Which big picture, though? Higher education?
Time for this country boy to sit a spell and whittle another wooden somethin'. This here Internet has gotten too uppity for his tastes lately. The wind in the trees and the voices of the woodland creatures tell just as good a story as them high-tech jawgobblers. The creatures sure won't poison the whole woods with funny-sounding chemical names, that's for sure.
See you later, alligator. After while, crocodile. I'll make like an amoeba and split.
Who's Gonna Get Us Off This Planet?
How long have you worked with your colleagues? Did it start in preschool? Do you think you only started when you took your first "real" job?
When I was a small child, I attended a seminar on personal growth. At the end of the seminar, the speaker told the young people in the audience she had a special message for those interested in more information so a smaller group of us gathered in another room with her.
The speaker asked how many of us could keep a secret and then had us play the "pass the secret" game (you know, where one person whispers a message in the ear of another, that person whispers the message in the ear of the next person, and so on, until the message has reached the ears of the original message-giver).
As the speaker whispered in the ear of the first person, she took quick glances at three of us in the room. Being acutely aware of adult behaviours, the three of us knew what she meant.
When the message got to me, I could tell the first kid of the three of us had modified the message by adding a phrase at the end, so I added another short phrase.
By the time the message got to the speaker, it had four parts.
The speaker thanked us for our participation and asked three to stay behind, including myself and two kids different than the two other ones I'd seen her signal.
The speaker explained that she was part of a very special group. She had watched us kids carefully and knew by our actions we could be trusted to follow our instincts and not follow instructions that indicated they were to be followed to the letter. You follow?
She told us she'd contact us later on. It might be days or it might be months but she'd let us know when she was back in town and had instructions for us to read very carefully, choosing for ourselves the direction we would take.
A few months later, my parents announced we were taking a tour of Washington, D.C. They excitedly told the family all the places they wanted us to see and asked us what we wanted to see. Of course, I wanted to visit the Smithsonian.
Just before our trip, the speaker showed up at my school to give a lecture on the flight of the Alice Springs camelback warbler. I attended the lecture and talked with the speaker afterward.
The speaker told me that while visiting buildings in Washington, I was to get lost from my parents and any tour group I was with. During my childlike, innocent wanderings, I was to gather information about certain subjects using whatever I had at my disposal. The speaker handed me a piece of paper, trained me with methods in how to enhance eidetic memory, had me memorise the list of words on the paper and then eat the paper (it had the sweet taste of ground horse hooves).
Back in those days, it was easy to wander through buildings.
When we walked into a building with a tour group, I would read the names of important people listed on the public display, get lost, and ask adults I bumped into if they could point me in the direction of my [uncle/aunt such-and-such]. Most adults were all too helpful and pointed me to elevators or hallways I could duck into until they disappeared.
That was in the 1970s. The speaker made it clear that the information I gathered would not be used for 30 or 40 years so I would be safe in having a long stretch of time between my face being seen and the data being put to use.
I had forgotten about the speaker and the information until recently.
While reviewing a multidimensional chart of population density versus wealth distribution versus manufacturing capability versus natural resource ownership/access versus education level versus military strength versus underworld valuation, I saw some of my old data.
During my childhood wanderings, I looked through the desk drawers of supposedly famous/powerful people, discovering their hidden trusts, foundations and other methods for keeping their wealth or estates off the books. I found accounting ledgers that showed who was depositing money in offshore accounts, offering free holidays, "loaning" free automobiles/houses/holiday homes, and the record of other terminology that a young person is not supposed to know about.
Using both my eidetic memory and a cheap tourist camera, I captured a lot of data. That was all I was supposed to do. However, as a child who had inside information, including names, and a cruel sense of humour for my age, I accidentally bumped into those famous/powerful people and asked them vague questions, dropping hints that on the surface made no sense, sending some people scrambling back to their offices or out of their offices in confusion. Then, I'd make myself obvious and get "found" by building security guards who'd kindly escort me back to my parents.
Now, while I watch political maneuvers that make no sense, I understand what's going on. I see politicians who are secretly figuring out if they can find a profitable way to get gambling casinos and "bingo halls" raised to the level of stock exchanges and regulated by the SEC. I see lobbyists who want to tie universal health care coverage to the court ruling on the federal authority of enforcing the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. I see corporate lawyers wanting to go after Chinese glass quality control while Toyota is facing a decrease in public trust. I see the U.S. president going after education and the Russian president going after Olympic trainers in the same light. In other words, who paid for the coup in Niger and who was paid to expose a "coup" in Turkey?
While my associates sort out the details to feed questions to the new set of speakers we've got combing through the tangled mess of public education for a few new recruits to join the network of associates that doesn't exist, I'm moving on to another project.
I've been told that a space agency leader is learning why some people are not good politicians and will be reined in properly. Therefore, I'm not going to worry about how the political effect on space exploration will play out. If I can see the difference between a player and a "playa," then so can those who I trust to take care of business using the politically-correct, public channels of communication. If not, then my associates know what to do next. Pedigree has never been a good form of shielding against the need of the many.
My associates rarely take the direct approach. We have time on our side. Lots of time. Decades, if that's what it takes. I remind them that I'm a nice guy and want all of us to use happy ways to move the world forward. They remind me that I'm a writer, the messenger boy, by my choice. We all have choices to make in how we take turns leading the network. I've made mine and they have their choices to make. Together, we'll get the job done, for our species, no single person more important than the other. Some will get rich along the way, some will get fame and power, some will keep their anonymity and some will take quiet walks in the woods. Never sacrifice freedom of choice to achieve our greater goals.
When I was a small child, I attended a seminar on personal growth. At the end of the seminar, the speaker told the young people in the audience she had a special message for those interested in more information so a smaller group of us gathered in another room with her.
The speaker asked how many of us could keep a secret and then had us play the "pass the secret" game (you know, where one person whispers a message in the ear of another, that person whispers the message in the ear of the next person, and so on, until the message has reached the ears of the original message-giver).
As the speaker whispered in the ear of the first person, she took quick glances at three of us in the room. Being acutely aware of adult behaviours, the three of us knew what she meant.
When the message got to me, I could tell the first kid of the three of us had modified the message by adding a phrase at the end, so I added another short phrase.
By the time the message got to the speaker, it had four parts.
The speaker thanked us for our participation and asked three to stay behind, including myself and two kids different than the two other ones I'd seen her signal.
The speaker explained that she was part of a very special group. She had watched us kids carefully and knew by our actions we could be trusted to follow our instincts and not follow instructions that indicated they were to be followed to the letter. You follow?
She told us she'd contact us later on. It might be days or it might be months but she'd let us know when she was back in town and had instructions for us to read very carefully, choosing for ourselves the direction we would take.
A few months later, my parents announced we were taking a tour of Washington, D.C. They excitedly told the family all the places they wanted us to see and asked us what we wanted to see. Of course, I wanted to visit the Smithsonian.
Just before our trip, the speaker showed up at my school to give a lecture on the flight of the Alice Springs camelback warbler. I attended the lecture and talked with the speaker afterward.
The speaker told me that while visiting buildings in Washington, I was to get lost from my parents and any tour group I was with. During my childlike, innocent wanderings, I was to gather information about certain subjects using whatever I had at my disposal. The speaker handed me a piece of paper, trained me with methods in how to enhance eidetic memory, had me memorise the list of words on the paper and then eat the paper (it had the sweet taste of ground horse hooves).
Back in those days, it was easy to wander through buildings.
When we walked into a building with a tour group, I would read the names of important people listed on the public display, get lost, and ask adults I bumped into if they could point me in the direction of my [uncle/aunt such-and-such]. Most adults were all too helpful and pointed me to elevators or hallways I could duck into until they disappeared.
That was in the 1970s. The speaker made it clear that the information I gathered would not be used for 30 or 40 years so I would be safe in having a long stretch of time between my face being seen and the data being put to use.
I had forgotten about the speaker and the information until recently.
While reviewing a multidimensional chart of population density versus wealth distribution versus manufacturing capability versus natural resource ownership/access versus education level versus military strength versus underworld valuation, I saw some of my old data.
During my childhood wanderings, I looked through the desk drawers of supposedly famous/powerful people, discovering their hidden trusts, foundations and other methods for keeping their wealth or estates off the books. I found accounting ledgers that showed who was depositing money in offshore accounts, offering free holidays, "loaning" free automobiles/houses/holiday homes, and the record of other terminology that a young person is not supposed to know about.
Using both my eidetic memory and a cheap tourist camera, I captured a lot of data. That was all I was supposed to do. However, as a child who had inside information, including names, and a cruel sense of humour for my age, I accidentally bumped into those famous/powerful people and asked them vague questions, dropping hints that on the surface made no sense, sending some people scrambling back to their offices or out of their offices in confusion. Then, I'd make myself obvious and get "found" by building security guards who'd kindly escort me back to my parents.
Now, while I watch political maneuvers that make no sense, I understand what's going on. I see politicians who are secretly figuring out if they can find a profitable way to get gambling casinos and "bingo halls" raised to the level of stock exchanges and regulated by the SEC. I see lobbyists who want to tie universal health care coverage to the court ruling on the federal authority of enforcing the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. I see corporate lawyers wanting to go after Chinese glass quality control while Toyota is facing a decrease in public trust. I see the U.S. president going after education and the Russian president going after Olympic trainers in the same light. In other words, who paid for the coup in Niger and who was paid to expose a "coup" in Turkey?
While my associates sort out the details to feed questions to the new set of speakers we've got combing through the tangled mess of public education for a few new recruits to join the network of associates that doesn't exist, I'm moving on to another project.
I've been told that a space agency leader is learning why some people are not good politicians and will be reined in properly. Therefore, I'm not going to worry about how the political effect on space exploration will play out. If I can see the difference between a player and a "playa," then so can those who I trust to take care of business using the politically-correct, public channels of communication. If not, then my associates know what to do next. Pedigree has never been a good form of shielding against the need of the many.
My associates rarely take the direct approach. We have time on our side. Lots of time. Decades, if that's what it takes. I remind them that I'm a nice guy and want all of us to use happy ways to move the world forward. They remind me that I'm a writer, the messenger boy, by my choice. We all have choices to make in how we take turns leading the network. I've made mine and they have their choices to make. Together, we'll get the job done, for our species, no single person more important than the other. Some will get rich along the way, some will get fame and power, some will keep their anonymity and some will take quiet walks in the woods. Never sacrifice freedom of choice to achieve our greater goals.
01 March 2010
The Business Of Caring
Reference material works for you.
Tonight, I've skimmed through my 1975 printing of the 1967 copyright of the BSA Handbook, reminding myself of the information I used to carry in my head, including surviving in harsh conditions, estimating the wind chill factor, identifying desert shrubs, finding fish, practicing water conservation and looking at star constellations.
I have books on stars and planets, edible wild plants, French idioms, Russian grammar/vocabulary, quotations, trees, house construction, American-style football, digital logic design, ...
And of course, the Internet, as close to an infinite source of reference material as it gets these days.
You, too, provide feedback and information that build the growing library of knowledge we carry in this moment.
The height, width and depth of knowledge you choose to use.
Physical sports demands your attention in the moment.
Knowledge is action, including muscle contraction and synaptic firing in the brain. Nothing is static. An unopened book or an unused muscle has potential. Use one or the other or both.
Tonight, I step back from all that goes on in the world at this moment to focus on this side eddy called me in the river of life, a node in the web of you and the rest of the universe.
Active random meditation, letting the thoughts come and go however you imagine thoughts coming and going.
One person. One clothes hanger holding up a shirt, boxer briefs, slacks, belt, socks and moccasins. Coated with soap, shampoo and shaving cream residue. Digesting lettuce, tomato, cabbage, carrots and soup stock. Tasting toothpaste. Smelling musty books and leather seatback. Eyes making contact with "visible" wavelengths. Fingers translating thoughts into e-words. Ears ringing with tinnitus. Gas gurgling in the gastrointestinal tract.
Backing down into one's core absence of self. Peeling away layers of social strata. Words losing meaning. No longer interpreting three-dimensional sight clues. One big blur of stimuli, cause and effect. Detached from understanding. No threads to grab onto. No thoughts to complete. Free of time within the confined space of the body that one no longer feels is separate from its environment.
We are part of the whole, everywhere, all the time. If we practice the discipline of removing labels, we remove walls and build new bridges within our thoughts and with others around us. Love and fear embrace, each feeding off the other.
Because we have labels to deal with on multiple levels of label stickiness and strength, identifying labels takes up part of the time we could spend removing labels. Such is life. But we can learn how to ignore labels and make them disappear.
The willingness to walk without fear into the open arena of hostility, love of life making you transparent and absent of labels. I see this everyday.
Are you at peace with your thoughts? Do you approach others without fear?
Peace is not the same as happiness but most often they are. Peace without happiness is accepting labels that separate you from others. Peace with happiness is love for all, knowing we are different but not separate.
I am imperfect. I carry old labels within me that I accepted from others in previous moments of my life.
However, I look for these labels within my thoughts and figure out what they are so I can study their cause and remove them from me while storing my impressions of how they'll appear in others. When I see these labels demonstrated by others, I ask them if they know they carry and display these labels. I mainly use humour to make this point (my wife says I sometimes slip into a snobby attitude when pointing out labels in others, a leftover label in me from my smartass schoolboy days I haven't completely erased).
I remove labels from my behaviours but keep them in my thoughts so I can look around me and see how others are using these labels for personal gain. There is always the danger of my reusing the labels or reinforcing others' use of these labels but such is the chance I take while working with my network of associates to move our species along.
Whatever I do, you do, too, because I am you and you are me. Gender or age makes no difference.
Let's take the time to remove labels from ourselves that no longer make sense. Some labels are harder to remove than others but the same dogged determination and discipline can remove labels they once applied.
I close my eyes for a few seconds and let the images of the world build back up in my thoughts again. My meditation comes to an end. Time to look at real-world problems and analyse them based on my new self minus a few labels that belong to the last moment of my life.
Every moment of my life is new so I choose to approach the next moment with a different me. Different how? A better understanding of my thoughts. A bigger, denser, richer picture of the universe in front of me, all because of you and your new self minus a few old labels.
We have all the time in the world. Let's not waste time worrying about how long it takes to get to know one another to help us remove out-of-date labels we've put on ourselves and on others. Time is on our side, if we give ourselves the time and space to understand where we're coming from.
Patience and discipline, my friends, tossed in with humour and meditation. Don't be in such a hurry just to repeat the same ol' slogans stamped on your mass-produced labels. We might even figure out how to quit pointing our warring and profiteering machines at one another and move our species forward a little faster instead of taking out our aggressions on one another.
One step at a time, one step at a time. We gotta get us looking up at the stars and building hope for populating the universe or we'll keep snapping at each other like caged animals.
Are you with me on that one? See why my associates and I have bigger goals than world domination? It's all about you and what goes on inside your thoughts. Get the whole species thinking "yes" and we might just outlive our self-destructive habits. Simulations show it's possible. I'm willing to believe. In fact, I will us to believe.
I know many of you won't and that's all right. I'm willing to give you the chance to say "yes" and then leave behind those who said "no." Free will. The freedom to choose for oneself the alternatives of our species.
Your one chance to answer that question is coming up soon. You've been shown the way to listen. I've taught you the simple words to remember: Be Prepared. Are you?
Tonight, I've skimmed through my 1975 printing of the 1967 copyright of the BSA Handbook, reminding myself of the information I used to carry in my head, including surviving in harsh conditions, estimating the wind chill factor, identifying desert shrubs, finding fish, practicing water conservation and looking at star constellations.
I have books on stars and planets, edible wild plants, French idioms, Russian grammar/vocabulary, quotations, trees, house construction, American-style football, digital logic design, ...
And of course, the Internet, as close to an infinite source of reference material as it gets these days.
You, too, provide feedback and information that build the growing library of knowledge we carry in this moment.
The height, width and depth of knowledge you choose to use.
Physical sports demands your attention in the moment.
Knowledge is action, including muscle contraction and synaptic firing in the brain. Nothing is static. An unopened book or an unused muscle has potential. Use one or the other or both.
Tonight, I step back from all that goes on in the world at this moment to focus on this side eddy called me in the river of life, a node in the web of you and the rest of the universe.
Active random meditation, letting the thoughts come and go however you imagine thoughts coming and going.
One person. One clothes hanger holding up a shirt, boxer briefs, slacks, belt, socks and moccasins. Coated with soap, shampoo and shaving cream residue. Digesting lettuce, tomato, cabbage, carrots and soup stock. Tasting toothpaste. Smelling musty books and leather seatback. Eyes making contact with "visible" wavelengths. Fingers translating thoughts into e-words. Ears ringing with tinnitus. Gas gurgling in the gastrointestinal tract.
Backing down into one's core absence of self. Peeling away layers of social strata. Words losing meaning. No longer interpreting three-dimensional sight clues. One big blur of stimuli, cause and effect. Detached from understanding. No threads to grab onto. No thoughts to complete. Free of time within the confined space of the body that one no longer feels is separate from its environment.
We are part of the whole, everywhere, all the time. If we practice the discipline of removing labels, we remove walls and build new bridges within our thoughts and with others around us. Love and fear embrace, each feeding off the other.
Because we have labels to deal with on multiple levels of label stickiness and strength, identifying labels takes up part of the time we could spend removing labels. Such is life. But we can learn how to ignore labels and make them disappear.
The willingness to walk without fear into the open arena of hostility, love of life making you transparent and absent of labels. I see this everyday.
Are you at peace with your thoughts? Do you approach others without fear?
Peace is not the same as happiness but most often they are. Peace without happiness is accepting labels that separate you from others. Peace with happiness is love for all, knowing we are different but not separate.
I am imperfect. I carry old labels within me that I accepted from others in previous moments of my life.
However, I look for these labels within my thoughts and figure out what they are so I can study their cause and remove them from me while storing my impressions of how they'll appear in others. When I see these labels demonstrated by others, I ask them if they know they carry and display these labels. I mainly use humour to make this point (my wife says I sometimes slip into a snobby attitude when pointing out labels in others, a leftover label in me from my smartass schoolboy days I haven't completely erased).
I remove labels from my behaviours but keep them in my thoughts so I can look around me and see how others are using these labels for personal gain. There is always the danger of my reusing the labels or reinforcing others' use of these labels but such is the chance I take while working with my network of associates to move our species along.
Whatever I do, you do, too, because I am you and you are me. Gender or age makes no difference.
Let's take the time to remove labels from ourselves that no longer make sense. Some labels are harder to remove than others but the same dogged determination and discipline can remove labels they once applied.
I close my eyes for a few seconds and let the images of the world build back up in my thoughts again. My meditation comes to an end. Time to look at real-world problems and analyse them based on my new self minus a few labels that belong to the last moment of my life.
Every moment of my life is new so I choose to approach the next moment with a different me. Different how? A better understanding of my thoughts. A bigger, denser, richer picture of the universe in front of me, all because of you and your new self minus a few old labels.
We have all the time in the world. Let's not waste time worrying about how long it takes to get to know one another to help us remove out-of-date labels we've put on ourselves and on others. Time is on our side, if we give ourselves the time and space to understand where we're coming from.
Patience and discipline, my friends, tossed in with humour and meditation. Don't be in such a hurry just to repeat the same ol' slogans stamped on your mass-produced labels. We might even figure out how to quit pointing our warring and profiteering machines at one another and move our species forward a little faster instead of taking out our aggressions on one another.
One step at a time, one step at a time. We gotta get us looking up at the stars and building hope for populating the universe or we'll keep snapping at each other like caged animals.
Are you with me on that one? See why my associates and I have bigger goals than world domination? It's all about you and what goes on inside your thoughts. Get the whole species thinking "yes" and we might just outlive our self-destructive habits. Simulations show it's possible. I'm willing to believe. In fact, I will us to believe.
I know many of you won't and that's all right. I'm willing to give you the chance to say "yes" and then leave behind those who said "no." Free will. The freedom to choose for oneself the alternatives of our species.
Your one chance to answer that question is coming up soon. You've been shown the way to listen. I've taught you the simple words to remember: Be Prepared. Are you?
Do You Believe What You Read?
The PLA. How much truth can you find in this article about one book?:
[By the way, one small note about a previous blog entry. Those who say "no" lose in the end.]
China Army Officer Urges Challenging US DominanceOr this article by a doomsday investor?:
'Buy farmland and gold,' advises Dr DoomWhat are you doing with your time and money? Are you helping those in need, regardless of their beliefs or yours?:
Learning From the Sin of SodomThis is your world. This is your species. Treat it/us with care. This is your only alternative.
[By the way, one small note about a previous blog entry. Those who say "no" lose in the end.]
Bonny Kangaroo
Every few days I take a walk through the woods behind my house. I leave nothing but boot prints and take nothing but photos.
Exceptions to every rule.
This morning, I awoke early, heated up a cup of Uncle Lee's tea and sat on the back deck listening to birds and armadillos.
A cool morning. Partly cloudy on the first day of March. When are we supposed to be aware of the ides of March? I don't know.
This quiet morning I heard the faint sounds of tapping coming from the woods up over the lip of the ridge.
So, I finished my tea, put on my hiking coat, grabbed my hiking stick and pointed my body toward the sounds that had since disappeared.
I don't believe in magic. I believe what I see. If a man in a tuxedo pulls a rabbit out of his top hat, then I figure he's using sleight of hand. As long as I'm entertained, though, it really doesn't matter if the rabbit magically appeared or fell out of the magician's jacket into the hat.
I scared the armadillos back under the sunroom and the birds scattered ahead of me. We respect the distance between each other.
As I climbed up the rock ledge, I listened for more tapping sounds. I heard cloth rustling like a flag flapping in the wind.
Three ridges later, I saw dark mustard yellow and dark forest green stripes low to the ground. A hundred paces in front of me a tent sat pitched in a small, grassy clearing.
Sitting crosslegged on a Mexican blanket in front of the tent was a petite woman. Her long hair was braided into two thick strands of climbing rope, both of them about the length of my forearm.
"You are here."
"I am here."
"A beautiful day!"
"Yes, and a little cool."
"Have a seat."
I sat on the blanket and faced her, both of us crosslegged and leaning forward slightly.
When I read a story, I want the writer to tell me the approximate age of the people in a scene. I look forward to other clues like facial blemishes, style of clothes, and body postures to tell me the people's lives before they speak.
This woman defied description. Her skin was smooth but wrinkled when she talked or smiled. Her skin tone changed as she turned her head from side to side. Ribbons of gold and silver weaved in and out of her braided hair, fooling me about her hair colour. Sunglasses hid her eyes. Her zipup hoodie had the word "Bonnaroo" stamped across the front. She wore new but faded blue jeans and muddied hiking boots. Her hands were covered with gardening gloves.
She held out a small journal. "Read this."
I opened the cover. The first page said, "To Rick. Thanks for everything, including our mountaintop excursions, glacier calving expeditions and zero gravity moonshots. Yours always, Bonny K." Literally. I mean the page actually spoke to me, no written words.
I turned to the next page. "Dear friend, we know the future for us. We know our adventures live outside time because when others don't know the two of you exist together, then they have no way to compare you to them."
I looked up at Bonny. "So you've already recorded our time together?"
"Every minute."
"For how long?"
"For the rest of our lives."
"So you know..."
"...how long we're going to live? Yes."
I closed the cover. "Do I want to know?"
She took off her glasses. "Do you?"
Are you one of those people who like to read the first couple of chapters and then skip to the last two pages to see if reading the rest of the book is worth it? I'm not. I read the first few chapters and if I'm bored I put the book down. I've found books in my library that I stopped reading when I was 15 and finished when I was 35. Age and experience that you bring to your reading are what makes the book worth finishing, not just what the author put into the writing.
I turned the journal over. The back cover told me, "Know the end and the end knows you."
I looked at Bonny. She smiled and in her smile I saw the face of an old woman who has spent most of her life in the outdoors.
Popular novelists will tell you to hook your reader with the first word, the first sentence, the first paragraph, the first page and set the hook before the end of the first five pages. If you want to be popular.
But there are those who purposefully write cryptic script. Obscurity and obfuscation serve readers who want to wade through swamps to get to the hidden lair of a rare being.
I felt the weight of the journal. A little heavier than it looked but not extraordinarily weighty.
"Do I want to read more?"
"Do you want to write more?"
"But you've already finished this journal, haven't you?"
"Have I?"
The paradox of time. When I was a kid watching the Watergate hearings and holding strong to my faith in the leadership of Richard Nixon, knowing history would paint a poor silhouette of a man who held the power of the world in his hands, a man who accomplished more than his natural paranoia superficially indicated, my father told me that I was living history and would read about these days when I studied Western Civilisation in college. If you've already lived history, why study it again?
I gave the journal to Bonny. "I assume that what happens next has already happened and has not already happened."
Bonny set the journal aside and reached out her hands. I pulled off her gloves and held her cold hands in mine.
Bonny relaxed. "I have a whole set of blank journals in the tent. We can write as many futures together as we want."
She turned and crawled into the tent.
I reached into my breast pocket and felt for the magic pen that never runs out of ink, given to me by a medicine man who told me the pen was destined to write the history of his people leading this nation, one tribe representing all tribes, time unimportant. He and I knew he spoke the truth.
Did I say I don't believe in magic? I will elaborate (but not laboriously). I don't believe in illusion. I believe in fact. This pen has never run out of ink and thus never will.
I followed Bonny into the tent and forgot about the stuff I promised to tell you in this blog entry. I disappeared outside of time for a while and can't remember how long I've been gone. Bonny and I buried each other in our old age and then returned so I could hike back to the house to write about us.
Sigh...another lifetime lived, another "yes" spoken without saying a word. How many lifetimes can we live? How many loves can we know, each one from birth to death?
Bonny, dear Bonny. Watching the fog roll in with you. Watching Earth's atmosphere disappear. Weightlessness for days on end... the wrinkles of your smile growing deeper with wisdom and love. Then to close the last page of the last journal and start over... how can 80 years feel like one brief, happy moment together?
Exceptions to every rule.
This morning, I awoke early, heated up a cup of Uncle Lee's tea and sat on the back deck listening to birds and armadillos.
A cool morning. Partly cloudy on the first day of March. When are we supposed to be aware of the ides of March? I don't know.
This quiet morning I heard the faint sounds of tapping coming from the woods up over the lip of the ridge.
So, I finished my tea, put on my hiking coat, grabbed my hiking stick and pointed my body toward the sounds that had since disappeared.
I don't believe in magic. I believe what I see. If a man in a tuxedo pulls a rabbit out of his top hat, then I figure he's using sleight of hand. As long as I'm entertained, though, it really doesn't matter if the rabbit magically appeared or fell out of the magician's jacket into the hat.
I scared the armadillos back under the sunroom and the birds scattered ahead of me. We respect the distance between each other.
As I climbed up the rock ledge, I listened for more tapping sounds. I heard cloth rustling like a flag flapping in the wind.
Three ridges later, I saw dark mustard yellow and dark forest green stripes low to the ground. A hundred paces in front of me a tent sat pitched in a small, grassy clearing.
Sitting crosslegged on a Mexican blanket in front of the tent was a petite woman. Her long hair was braided into two thick strands of climbing rope, both of them about the length of my forearm.
"You are here."
"I am here."
"A beautiful day!"
"Yes, and a little cool."
"Have a seat."
I sat on the blanket and faced her, both of us crosslegged and leaning forward slightly.
When I read a story, I want the writer to tell me the approximate age of the people in a scene. I look forward to other clues like facial blemishes, style of clothes, and body postures to tell me the people's lives before they speak.
This woman defied description. Her skin was smooth but wrinkled when she talked or smiled. Her skin tone changed as she turned her head from side to side. Ribbons of gold and silver weaved in and out of her braided hair, fooling me about her hair colour. Sunglasses hid her eyes. Her zipup hoodie had the word "Bonnaroo" stamped across the front. She wore new but faded blue jeans and muddied hiking boots. Her hands were covered with gardening gloves.
She held out a small journal. "Read this."
I opened the cover. The first page said, "To Rick. Thanks for everything, including our mountaintop excursions, glacier calving expeditions and zero gravity moonshots. Yours always, Bonny K." Literally. I mean the page actually spoke to me, no written words.
I turned to the next page. "Dear friend, we know the future for us. We know our adventures live outside time because when others don't know the two of you exist together, then they have no way to compare you to them."
I looked up at Bonny. "So you've already recorded our time together?"
"Every minute."
"For how long?"
"For the rest of our lives."
"So you know..."
"...how long we're going to live? Yes."
I closed the cover. "Do I want to know?"
She took off her glasses. "Do you?"
Are you one of those people who like to read the first couple of chapters and then skip to the last two pages to see if reading the rest of the book is worth it? I'm not. I read the first few chapters and if I'm bored I put the book down. I've found books in my library that I stopped reading when I was 15 and finished when I was 35. Age and experience that you bring to your reading are what makes the book worth finishing, not just what the author put into the writing.
I turned the journal over. The back cover told me, "Know the end and the end knows you."
I looked at Bonny. She smiled and in her smile I saw the face of an old woman who has spent most of her life in the outdoors.
Popular novelists will tell you to hook your reader with the first word, the first sentence, the first paragraph, the first page and set the hook before the end of the first five pages. If you want to be popular.
But there are those who purposefully write cryptic script. Obscurity and obfuscation serve readers who want to wade through swamps to get to the hidden lair of a rare being.
I felt the weight of the journal. A little heavier than it looked but not extraordinarily weighty.
"Do I want to read more?"
"Do you want to write more?"
"But you've already finished this journal, haven't you?"
"Have I?"
The paradox of time. When I was a kid watching the Watergate hearings and holding strong to my faith in the leadership of Richard Nixon, knowing history would paint a poor silhouette of a man who held the power of the world in his hands, a man who accomplished more than his natural paranoia superficially indicated, my father told me that I was living history and would read about these days when I studied Western Civilisation in college. If you've already lived history, why study it again?
I gave the journal to Bonny. "I assume that what happens next has already happened and has not already happened."
Bonny set the journal aside and reached out her hands. I pulled off her gloves and held her cold hands in mine.
Bonny relaxed. "I have a whole set of blank journals in the tent. We can write as many futures together as we want."
She turned and crawled into the tent.
I reached into my breast pocket and felt for the magic pen that never runs out of ink, given to me by a medicine man who told me the pen was destined to write the history of his people leading this nation, one tribe representing all tribes, time unimportant. He and I knew he spoke the truth.
Did I say I don't believe in magic? I will elaborate (but not laboriously). I don't believe in illusion. I believe in fact. This pen has never run out of ink and thus never will.
I followed Bonny into the tent and forgot about the stuff I promised to tell you in this blog entry. I disappeared outside of time for a while and can't remember how long I've been gone. Bonny and I buried each other in our old age and then returned so I could hike back to the house to write about us.
Sigh...another lifetime lived, another "yes" spoken without saying a word. How many lifetimes can we live? How many loves can we know, each one from birth to death?
Bonny, dear Bonny. Watching the fog roll in with you. Watching Earth's atmosphere disappear. Weightlessness for days on end... the wrinkles of your smile growing deeper with wisdom and love. Then to close the last page of the last journal and start over... how can 80 years feel like one brief, happy moment together?
28 February 2010
Men's Topaz Ring, Makes 12 Oz.
Did you ever study MORTIE, the organisation that doesn't exist? Talk about fiction talking about fiction.
I have to make sure many of my encounters in life have a random feel to them. Sure, I'm giving my cohorts the slip but I also like variety within the moment. I get tired of looking at planning diaries telling me what to do next.
Today, I randomly ate lunch at Old Heidelberg Restaurant with family and friends, seeing Dr. Nixon and her family at a nearby table, which was the clue the server knew that triggered the delivery of a stack of CD-Rs (CD-R = computer compact disc that one can store data/music onto).
During the normal-looking exchange of birthday presents at our table, I let the server know which bag I would drop the discs into. Before that, I had "accidentally" punched one server in front of a colleague of mine who was acting as a random customer. He passed a note written on a sales receipt read by the cook who then told the hostess to inform a server to deliver my dinner plate to me with the CDs attached underneath. She was only to hand the plate to me after I passed the phrase "Zigeunerschnitzel" and then I would receive a dish covered in white cream sauce that told me the CDs were actually fake and I was to leave them under another "random" seat at the Monaco Theatre matinee showing of "Crazy Heart."
The actual data delivered to me was stuffed into a strip of red pepper that I "swallowed"; that is, I bit into the pepper, felt the USB drive inside, tucked it into a place between my teeth and gums and ate the rest of the meal until I wiped my lips with the napkin and spit the USB drive into a fold of the napkin.
I slipped the USB drive into my coat sleeve as I put the coat on and then dropped the USB drive between a cushion and arm of a stuffed chair at the Chocolate Crocodile that will be vacuumed by a "random" employee there. The next morning, another "random" worker will empty the contents of the vacuum cleaner and pass the USB drive to a "random" customer first thing in the morning.
Or so I was told to lead you to believe by the bald guy sitting across the room from me who used the old folding napkin semaphore messaging system taught to me during a college miniterm in Writing Spy Fiction, given by a hackneyed Russian comedian who was going into a new line of work, jokes disguised as collegiate-level mathematical philosophy.
In fact, the data was written in some oil stains on the carpark surface that held microfilm which my shoes picked up and I am now analysing while typing this blog entry.
Old-school tech still serves us well in the business. Just like we know that e-book theft is rising, we know that e-theft in general dominates both the teenage life and the underground (and commonly both). E-data is meant to be stolen so why confuse those of us in the business about what is and what is not supposed to "stolen"?
Meanwhile, muscular thugs with nothing better to do are performing old school tactics of their own to convert some indebted middle class families into workers for "the cause." I keep trying to tell these out-of-work, over-the-hill female roller derby gals to lay off the violence but they like to stay in shape. Besides, they tell me, intimidation gives their skin a special glow they can't get anywhere else. They think the Stanley Cup will reflect their personalities beautifully [blatant free (not blatant-free) advert inserted here: "the Stanley Cup is slated to make an appearance at the Alabama-Huntsville-Bemidji State "National Defense Night" hockey game on March 5th at the Von Braun Center in Huntsville"]!
I'll take data however it was derived or extracted. I'm neutral, as you know. If the church women's circle or the longshorewomen want to bring me information at their discretion, I'll nod, smile and be the delivery boy for the rest of the network processing possible future outcomes, incomes, outgoes or delicious takeaway.
Did you know a group of scientists has shown that large quantities of bacteria, large numbers of giant squid and other massive movements of biological substances can change the ocean currents? Did you also know that cruise ships have been known to dump their trash at sea? Well, now we know a little more about the future, don't we?
I've just about got the hackers off on a wild goose feather lasercut design contest and off my back which means I'll have time to put together the backup version of the "totally awesome, for sure, yes" scenario I promised you, the original version having been shredded by a four-year old who had rewired her father's electronics outlet store into a giant hackbot and figured out how to get into the supercomputer network stored in duplicate underground bunkers located in Los Alamos, Las Vegas, Huntsville, Oak Ridge and Lake Buena Vista. Thank goodness she didn't know what she found and thus just rearranged the words and numbers in the files, turning them into a baby's nursery rhyme as a joke.
Yesterday, while enjoying cocoa/vanilla delicacies at the Huntsville Botanical Garden with the rest of the area's chocoholics, I saw some old friends, including a trumpet player and the guy who used to work for the Chases, and some new friends, including a drummer and a woman who told me, "Is it just me or is it getting hot in here," after she introduced me to her husband. Made our afternoon meal at Wintzell's more enjoyable because James used his quick decisiveness to fix the confused kitchen crew and brought me hot Southern cheese grits with crawdad sauce.
You don't know who I am. I don't know who I am. I am unimportant. I have nothing up my sleeve that you can see or use. I am simply the messenger.
But data is power. The more data you move, the more powerful you are. Money is a symptom, not the cause. Don't confuse wealth with power. Don't confuse electricity with power.
I have told you over and over (and told you "over and over" over and over) - the key phrase here is "states of energy." Focus on those facts alone and you will be able to say "yes" without hesitation. You are but states of energy. The quicker you change those states of energy, the more power flows through you and the easier you say "yes" every time the question pops up.
That's all I can share with you right now. My supercomputer is overheating while rebuilding the "what if the species could say 'yes' even while thinking of mooning green cheese" scenario so I've got to shovel some buckets of dry ice to cool it down. I told the team members who wanted to build cool gaming machines with overclocked CPUs that I'd need the computers when the time came and to have their übercomputers supercooled but they have spent too much time installing their lightshows to finish the simple instructions I gave them. Watercooled is all I asked for, not retro rocketcar radiator tubing a third of them have half-installed!
To the double-head-swing woman in line at the Marriott job fair, I wish I had more time. Same time, next time, perhaps? Same signal, too.
I have to make sure many of my encounters in life have a random feel to them. Sure, I'm giving my cohorts the slip but I also like variety within the moment. I get tired of looking at planning diaries telling me what to do next.
Today, I randomly ate lunch at Old Heidelberg Restaurant with family and friends, seeing Dr. Nixon and her family at a nearby table, which was the clue the server knew that triggered the delivery of a stack of CD-Rs (CD-R = computer compact disc that one can store data/music onto).
During the normal-looking exchange of birthday presents at our table, I let the server know which bag I would drop the discs into. Before that, I had "accidentally" punched one server in front of a colleague of mine who was acting as a random customer. He passed a note written on a sales receipt read by the cook who then told the hostess to inform a server to deliver my dinner plate to me with the CDs attached underneath. She was only to hand the plate to me after I passed the phrase "Zigeunerschnitzel" and then I would receive a dish covered in white cream sauce that told me the CDs were actually fake and I was to leave them under another "random" seat at the Monaco Theatre matinee showing of "Crazy Heart."
The actual data delivered to me was stuffed into a strip of red pepper that I "swallowed"; that is, I bit into the pepper, felt the USB drive inside, tucked it into a place between my teeth and gums and ate the rest of the meal until I wiped my lips with the napkin and spit the USB drive into a fold of the napkin.
I slipped the USB drive into my coat sleeve as I put the coat on and then dropped the USB drive between a cushion and arm of a stuffed chair at the Chocolate Crocodile that will be vacuumed by a "random" employee there. The next morning, another "random" worker will empty the contents of the vacuum cleaner and pass the USB drive to a "random" customer first thing in the morning.
Or so I was told to lead you to believe by the bald guy sitting across the room from me who used the old folding napkin semaphore messaging system taught to me during a college miniterm in Writing Spy Fiction, given by a hackneyed Russian comedian who was going into a new line of work, jokes disguised as collegiate-level mathematical philosophy.
In fact, the data was written in some oil stains on the carpark surface that held microfilm which my shoes picked up and I am now analysing while typing this blog entry.
Old-school tech still serves us well in the business. Just like we know that e-book theft is rising, we know that e-theft in general dominates both the teenage life and the underground (and commonly both). E-data is meant to be stolen so why confuse those of us in the business about what is and what is not supposed to "stolen"?
Meanwhile, muscular thugs with nothing better to do are performing old school tactics of their own to convert some indebted middle class families into workers for "the cause." I keep trying to tell these out-of-work, over-the-hill female roller derby gals to lay off the violence but they like to stay in shape. Besides, they tell me, intimidation gives their skin a special glow they can't get anywhere else. They think the Stanley Cup will reflect their personalities beautifully [blatant free (not blatant-free) advert inserted here: "the Stanley Cup is slated to make an appearance at the Alabama-Huntsville-Bemidji State "National Defense Night" hockey game on March 5th at the Von Braun Center in Huntsville"]!
I'll take data however it was derived or extracted. I'm neutral, as you know. If the church women's circle or the longshorewomen want to bring me information at their discretion, I'll nod, smile and be the delivery boy for the rest of the network processing possible future outcomes, incomes, outgoes or delicious takeaway.
Did you know a group of scientists has shown that large quantities of bacteria, large numbers of giant squid and other massive movements of biological substances can change the ocean currents? Did you also know that cruise ships have been known to dump their trash at sea? Well, now we know a little more about the future, don't we?
I've just about got the hackers off on a wild goose feather lasercut design contest and off my back which means I'll have time to put together the backup version of the "totally awesome, for sure, yes" scenario I promised you, the original version having been shredded by a four-year old who had rewired her father's electronics outlet store into a giant hackbot and figured out how to get into the supercomputer network stored in duplicate underground bunkers located in Los Alamos, Las Vegas, Huntsville, Oak Ridge and Lake Buena Vista. Thank goodness she didn't know what she found and thus just rearranged the words and numbers in the files, turning them into a baby's nursery rhyme as a joke.
Yesterday, while enjoying cocoa/vanilla delicacies at the Huntsville Botanical Garden with the rest of the area's chocoholics, I saw some old friends, including a trumpet player and the guy who used to work for the Chases, and some new friends, including a drummer and a woman who told me, "Is it just me or is it getting hot in here," after she introduced me to her husband. Made our afternoon meal at Wintzell's more enjoyable because James used his quick decisiveness to fix the confused kitchen crew and brought me hot Southern cheese grits with crawdad sauce.
You don't know who I am. I don't know who I am. I am unimportant. I have nothing up my sleeve that you can see or use. I am simply the messenger.
But data is power. The more data you move, the more powerful you are. Money is a symptom, not the cause. Don't confuse wealth with power. Don't confuse electricity with power.
I have told you over and over (and told you "over and over" over and over) - the key phrase here is "states of energy." Focus on those facts alone and you will be able to say "yes" without hesitation. You are but states of energy. The quicker you change those states of energy, the more power flows through you and the easier you say "yes" every time the question pops up.
That's all I can share with you right now. My supercomputer is overheating while rebuilding the "what if the species could say 'yes' even while thinking of mooning green cheese" scenario so I've got to shovel some buckets of dry ice to cool it down. I told the team members who wanted to build cool gaming machines with overclocked CPUs that I'd need the computers when the time came and to have their übercomputers supercooled but they have spent too much time installing their lightshows to finish the simple instructions I gave them. Watercooled is all I asked for, not retro rocketcar radiator tubing a third of them have half-installed!
To the double-head-swing woman in line at the Marriott job fair, I wish I had more time. Same time, next time, perhaps? Same signal, too.
Cauliflower Ears For Dinner Again?!
While the social termites choose up sides and decide the parts of civilisation they want to chew up, I am sorting through the hay bales of information rolling up beside me.
Here's one needle: several international groups are gathering their resources, including lobbyists, aides and pages, from whom a new battlefront is being drawn, whereby, the forthwith data presented, in the event that previous contracts were nullified before they were signed, whereas a gaggle of lawyers will submit lawsuits that drain the bribery-laden accounts of legislators, lawyers, barristers, lobbyists, corporate interests, judges, czars and other players who are being asked to slow down their activities to make their counterintuitive interests known...slow down! Enough with the legalese!
Another straw: while the lawsuits flow like warmedover molasses, the computer programmers who are being paid to look the other way will divert rivulets of wet paper soaked with electronic ink to those who are interested in de-electing the whole bunch at once, thus taking down the wizard's curtain and exposing who's pulling the pulleys and chains. Same as the "who's making money off of whom" medical shell game.
Some people take my reset button scenario far more seriously than a writer would wish for.
Meanwhile, the creatures that don't exist who keep our planet turning want to take a long-deserved holiday. Where do they go and who will take their place?
And I thought today was a slow news day!
More for you after I give the hackers something else to sink their teeth into. I have some readers who want another romantic interlude, a pedestrian pas de deux for the masses who don't know or care about atomic weights or new Copernican elements. An Italian holiday without one mention of Filippo Brunelleschi!
Here's one needle: several international groups are gathering their resources, including lobbyists, aides and pages, from whom a new battlefront is being drawn, whereby, the forthwith data presented, in the event that previous contracts were nullified before they were signed, whereas a gaggle of lawyers will submit lawsuits that drain the bribery-laden accounts of legislators, lawyers, barristers, lobbyists, corporate interests, judges, czars and other players who are being asked to slow down their activities to make their counterintuitive interests known...slow down! Enough with the legalese!
Another straw: while the lawsuits flow like warmedover molasses, the computer programmers who are being paid to look the other way will divert rivulets of wet paper soaked with electronic ink to those who are interested in de-electing the whole bunch at once, thus taking down the wizard's curtain and exposing who's pulling the pulleys and chains. Same as the "who's making money off of whom" medical shell game.
Some people take my reset button scenario far more seriously than a writer would wish for.
Meanwhile, the creatures that don't exist who keep our planet turning want to take a long-deserved holiday. Where do they go and who will take their place?
And I thought today was a slow news day!
More for you after I give the hackers something else to sink their teeth into. I have some readers who want another romantic interlude, a pedestrian pas de deux for the masses who don't know or care about atomic weights or new Copernican elements. An Italian holiday without one mention of Filippo Brunelleschi!
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