It is your life

No one can live your life for you.  No one owns you.

You cannot own another life, for it is theirs to live.

This is an area of living that is not really addressed much.  For some, they do not appreciate people living their own lives, believing what they will, living according to their own conscience.

When a person chooses, he or she can live their own life.  Become who he or she wants to be.

Parents cannot dictate the direction of an adult child, nor should they.  Religions should not dictate to us how we should live either.  Government nor religion is the keeper of souls.  Government nor religion has the authority to dictate to us how we should live.

Within us all we have the ability to appreciate, learn, be in awe of, love, hate, be selfish or selfless.

It is up to each of us to decide how we choose to be, while alive.

We all have to accept the consequences of choices we make.  Whatever benefits or setbacks our choices spawn, that is for each of us to live with.

Remember, we only have one life.  There is no starting over, only changing course.

How to change course.
Walk in the desert for a month.
Be still inside until you hear what is not your desire.
Why must you have what you want?
Drink enough water, eat mostly fruits and vegetables, get enough sleep
and treat people how you wish to be treated.
Don’t tell anyone what you are trying to accomplish, see if they get it by observation, or example.
Don’t listen to me….bouzouki

 

It’s funny, I wildly followed my heart for most of my life. Then, somewhere in my late thirties, when I realized I was a bit of a gypsy and didn’t have the ‘laundry list’ (own a house, husband, large savings account, set routines) I started to feel very inadequate. I still dressed funky when everyone else I knew was ‘grown up’. I felt lost and started buying the clothes I thought were ‘age appropriate’ meaning NOT silly colors or funky mixings of patterns. I, for the first time, made a concerted effort to ‘fit in’. It failed miserably. WE are who and what we are!!! I’ve been on a comeback for a while now and just keep getting happier and happier. No one else on the planet knows what we need or the proper way to express ourselves….blissbait.

No one to follow

People are of a herd mentality, and with herds,  there is a leader.

Today our leaders are elected for the most part, some are appointed and others just take the role upon themselves.

Some people have leaders who are long dead, choosing to pattern their lives according to how they imagine the long dead person would desire them to live.

When I was a child, JFK made an impression on me, he was a person I would have followed.  After that Jesus came along, but unfortunately, in this age questions have arisen, situations develop, which there are no answers to in the recording of a dead man’s words.

Since then, realizing no one is perfect, I have lost faith in mankind in respect to leadership.

There is no one to follow.

As I age and stumble through this maze of life, I am realizing I have to depend on my own resources to point me in the “proper” direction.

Me, not being perfect either, am prone to making mistakes.  They are my mistakes.  It is my responsibility.  I temper myself with the realization I have dependents.  I have someone to answer to, them.  This responsibility keeps me from going crazy.  My sense of love and compassion forms this responsibility in my being.

I have not looked to government or anyone else to decide how I should live.  I work within the laws, mostly, as I do not desire trouble I don’t need. Other than that, my life is mine.  I am the only one who can live my life.  Religion can’t live my life for me.  An  appointed czar has no meaning for me, just a man with a job and an ego is all.

Does it worry me there is no one for me to follow?

No.

I am free.

The Jesus Factor

Miss Bliss brought up Jesus in one of her posts.  She met a man someone referred to as Jesus and she ended up writing a song about her experience.

The man referred to as Jesus denied being Jesus like, but the aura and vibes he projected made a lasting impression.

I daresay, we all encountered people like that in our lives.  There was something about them, peace, joy and love radiating from their being affecting those around them, like a balm.

For the lack of anyone else to compare this experience to, we refer to the person who projects these  feelings as being Christ like, as the essence of Jesus is known throughout the world.

It is amazing when you think about it.  It has been two thousand years since he is said to have walked this earth and he is as controversial, loved, despised, idolized and famous as if he had died only yesterday.

I know of no other person, man or woman, who has made such an impression on the world, at least from my perspective.  Even Muslims honor Jesus, they just view him as a prophet.

There is speculation that Jesus did not exist, but is the merging of the personalities of Hillel the Elder, a famous Jewish Rabbi who lived near  the time Jesus lived and the Teacher of Righteousness.

The stories which comprise the four gospels in the New Testament paint some conflicting pictures of Jesus, but to my mind there is a thread of continuity that paints Jesus as an unselfish, humble teacher who prized compassion and love for people, regardless who they may be.

Jesus is an enigma,  setting an example for living that is not appreciated or understood.

He was a man of peace.  He had no love of hypocrisy according to those who described him.

I visualize a solitary figure walking alone on the shore by the Sea of Galilee and I wonder what thoughts filled his mind and what feelings saturated his heart.

Is God a prude?

Why should a topless coffee shop anger people?

The angry people don’t have to go there, do they?

Do the people who are topless, have to accept the job?  Is someone standing behind them, forcing them to reveal their breasts?  Some women like walking around impressing the men folk with their assets.

What is there to be angry about?  Personally, I don’t frequent coffee shops so it doesn’t make a difference and I am not going to waste my angry emotion on something like this.

There are more than three billion females on this planet and I daresay most have breasts.  Not only that, we are all born naked.

If God was a prude, we would have clothes on when we popped out, but it doesn’t work that way.

Every other species on this planet walks, crawls, flies, makes love in birthday suits, except for us

Damn, we are an unusual bunch aren’t we?

There is a lot of real talent and creativity out there

I checked out two blogs I frequent this morning, ksverny and ottobiography.

Kokot is an artist, writer, photographer, composer, poet, musician, actor, producer and chef, who has a sense of humor and mixes his unique talents in a melting pot of creativity.  Like the proverbial box of chocolates, you never know which one you’re going to get.

I laughed when I saw Otto’s cartoons.

These people  are geniuses when it comes to making people smile.

I am thankful they are here, otherwise life would be a drag.

Appreciation of Life

many feel that life
has done them wrong
and feel down
yet you are still alive

maybe existence
could be better
in your eyes

what are you missing?

look around
smell, touch, taste, listen, see
there has to be something
someone
you are happy
is here

is that which you enjoy
not worth life?

while you concentrate on
what makes you feel good
the other slips
away

Christians and Muslims can’t say no

I would have a lot more respect for those who claim to love God, Allah and Jesus, for Islam regards Jesus as a prophet too, as I understand it, if they could say “no”.

Between Christianity and Islam, they claim a good majority of earths population belongs to many of their factions.  That is wonderful.

Why can’t they follow the basics?

Do you think Jesus as portrayed in scripture would have sent suicide bombers into the world?

Do you think Jesus would have dropped Little Boy and Fat Boy on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Do you think Jesus would help fund the CIA, or weapons of mass destruction?

Do you think Jesus would stone a girl for smiling at a man who was not chosen for her?

I don’t think so.  Not from what I have read.  He appears to have been a pretty cool guy.  He healed people.  Turned the other cheek.  Even put back an ear after one of his guards chopped it off the person who was trying to arrest Jesus.

Doesn’t sound like a suicide bomber or a nuke trigger man does he?

With four billion followers, you would assume if they all said “no”, we cannot have this, it is against our faith or the core of our being, we will no longer pay for this, and stop payment for these things, what would happen?

No one knows because they haven’t got the courage to try to do the right thing.  What are they going to do, throw four billion people in jail or kill them? 

What happened to patience?

I remember watching the stand off at Waco, Texas years ago until Janet Reno and Bill Clinton said, “enough is enough, let’s roll”.

The inferno engulfed the complex and the charred remains of men, women and many children were left for the world to see, although they did their best to cover it up so people wouldn’t have to live with a guilt complex.

I’m thinking to myself.

Yeah, need to have vengeance, eh Bill and Janet?  Caved in to the demands of the righteous.

With all the money and time available, they couldn’t have waited?   Or pulled back till the people under siege were forced to forage for food and collected them one by one?

Would have taken too long, eh?

No, this stand off was making the mighty war machine look ridiculous in their minds.

This mighty war machine would have gained much more respect if it had some consideration for the children, American citizens who deserved a break today, not a death sentence.

You have to wonder about the motivation for the actions people do.

Thou Shalt Not Kill (Murder) who or what?

This is one of the big commandments Moses claimed that God wrote on a couple of stone tables, after being on a mountain for forty days and nights.

Apparently this is one of those commandments to be taken seriously, as people have a grading system.  Lies apparently are not as devastating to God as murder is.

The problem is there seemed to be a few loopholes in this commandment the way humans see it.

It all depends on how one views it doesn’t it?

When I was a child, the commandment said, thou shalt not kill.  Now it says thou shalt not murder.  Convenient how God’s word can change, isn’t it?  Do you think God has trouble making up his or her or its mind?

There are some other aspects to this commandment that are confusing.  Not kill or murder who or what?

There seems to be no qualifier.  There was stuff written afterward by people who tried to interpret this, for they cannot understand the simplicity of literal translation, they have to make a legal game of it.  That insures the service industry of pastoral and priestly servitude keeps on raking in the dough for interpretation purposes.

What if it means what it says?

Thou shalt not kill.  That’s it.  Not kill.  Anything or anybody.

There will be a lot people in trouble with God on this world if this is true, wouldn’t there?

I know I am guilty.

All those people, Christians, Muslims, Jews and other faiths who claim that this story of Moses is the back bone of their faith have trouble with this and encourage the continued justification of kill or murder.

Pulling the trigger, or financing the weaponry for someone else to use, is no different.

Kind of makes believers who pay taxes to wage unjustified war hypocrites, doesn’t it?

Other life forms

We kill them for food, kill them for being a nuisance, make pets out of them or pen them up so we can stare at them.

Nice of us isn’t it?

There are a few we use to perform work for us, but now we have discovered the internal combustion engine and rubberized wheels, they are no longer of use.

Do we realize what we do by massacring what is?

Time magazine had an interesting article about the millions of tons of tuna we harvest from the ocean each year.  That is akin to tuna genocide isn’t it?  Fisherman have to go further and spend more time to catch the same quantities they used to.

Reminds me of the stories of the millions of buffalo that roamed free on the prairies and were almost brought to extinction by man.

I saw a picture of a carcass of a blue whale, apparently killed having been cut by the propellers of a ship.  The second blue whale killed this way this year.  I don’t know how long it takes a blue whale to grow to seventy or one hundred foot lengths, but do know it is a mammal and must possess some intelligence.

There are only 6.6 billion of us now, wait till the world population hits 9 billion.

Will there be any edible life forms left?

What is wrong with us?  In order for us to survive as a species we have to take a look at what we are doing, otherwise we had better thin out our own ranks for we are the most destructive species on this planet.

This morning I got up and was filling my coffee pot with water.  I felt something on my leg.  Chica was looking at me, as was her way when she needs something.  There were five dogs in the house and they had no water.  She was thirsty and let me know by touching me with her paw and looking at me.  This was not the first time she communicated with me this way.

There are many other species that have intelligence and a society, such as elephants.

We kill elephants for ivory.  I have seen deer and moose killed for antlers or tongue.

We no longer have the luxury of indiscriminately killing because we can.  It is as simple as that.

We are a bunch of bastards at times.

If my mind had not been infected

by teachings of those
society held
in respect and awe
who were absolutely
sure

if they had not filled
my brain
with their claims

if they had allowed
the others
to do
the same

how would i think
today

after i discovered
much was not so
there were no demons
beckoning my soul

how would my life be
why are
they convicted
to their cause

the words they taught
hide in the corners
of my mind

and will likely
never
disappear

have they no soul
they who refuse to know

what truth has uncovered
in the matter of soul

if they really were
concerned with our souls

they would not refuse
truth to be told

bouzouki’s contribution……

I wonder how I found the path I have taken?
Do you think anyone would desire this?
When there is nothing to compare
Can you accept what is there?

Words mean nothing if you can’t hear,
If you don’t listen
Its not clear
and there is something amiss.

I saw the largest elephant in the room today
but I didn’t talk about it.

bouzouki’s thoughts….

…bouzouki dropped these my way and I thought I would share them with you.

The use of force to obtain objectives is becoming obsolete, but i doubt that we will stop using war, even if it doesn’t work. To a man with a hammer, every problem is a nail. War in Afghanistan cost the USSR its empire. War in Vietnam cost the USA 58,000 dead, and the price was not high enough to teach us anything. I wonder how much more we need to spend before we will have too little to protect.
The next terrorist may not fight for any religion or ideology, it may be a spurned love, a hidden bankruptcy, or a feeling of being wronged. We will call only the politically motivated as terrorist, not the socially motivated. We will not call a governmental act as terrorist, we may call it justified, though.

when a person or group operates from a position of superior strength, they assume that their position is correct and the other side must acquiesce without resistance. We use ideology, dogma, economic superiority, mythology, or just might in the face of a less equipped foe and justify it with any number of ways to state our position. When the Ethic of Reciprocity runs its course, it is clear that we may be forced to find a different set of reasons to justify behavior, and there may not be any justification.
The treatment of others has consequences, many are unintended consequences, which are a special branch, the branch that breaks between you and the tree.

Tail Wagging Society of St. Joseph

I came home and stepped out of the truck to be greeted by the raucous sounds of barks.

I looked up to the fence and saw seventeen four legged furry critters standing on their hind legs, their fore paws sticking through the fence supporting their unusual stance.

“Buenas dias, mi amigos and amigas,” my Spanish is less than perfect so I intersperse with a little English.

The fact I responded quieted them.  They stared at me, some cocked their heads to one side, wondering, what is this two legged apparition saying?

“Ok, ok.   I give up.  Why are you so quiet all of a sudden?”

The don’t have a lot of patience.  They started looking at me and then each other as if they required moral support and one let out with a bark.  The rest soon followed suit.

I laughed.  Their tails were all wagging.

“The tail wagging society of St. Joseph.  That is your new moniker!”  I announced.

Didn’t seem to affect them one way or the other.

Spirit flying low

memories of the dead
filling my mind
those who i have known
those whom i have never known

they whisper to me
those from long ago
the ones i have not known
roamed this land

long ago

i feel it in my soul
they are trying to tell me
something
what it is
i do not know

they are peaceful with me
their message is not
maybe that is why
i understand it not

Words Roll in My Mind

from ages ago
honed by time
seeping through history
mixing with today

the stuff of legends and myth
the questions and conclusions
of men and women
who no longer
exist

their words
live on
in the dimension
called now

blending with thoughts
the questions are the same
conclusions are drawn
words live on

We are the greatest, therefore who are you?

The prevailing attitude.

We look at other cultures and peoples and judge.

Judge on stuff they have.  How they live.  If they are poor, they are nothing.

If there is dissent in the land, they are less than nothing.

Fodder for the drones.

How dare they express their anger and frustration in retaliation!

Don’t they realize who they are dealing with?  Let’s squash them like the vermin they are.

After all, only we know what’s best.  We are the only “real” humans.

Aren’t we?

“It’s time for you to find another donkey” …..

…….Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas spoke those words when announcing he will not seek re-election.

He is tired of the bullshit in respect to Israeli expansion and settlement talks.

Now Abbas knows what if feels like to be a North American Native a few hundred years ago when the lands were disappearing from under his control.  Promises were made and never kept.

Don’t forget in those days blacks were not considered quite human, so the Natives were probably viewed the same way, therefore why honor promises?  This thinking still permeates the minds of the ruling junta.

The lies of politicians.   Say one thing and do another.

It is difficult for anyone to play this game when the cards they are dealt keep changing in front of theirs noses without doing anything for them to change.

Maybe this is a wake up call.

Something happened on two worlds 2,000 years ago.

I found it extremely interesting that the Lakota legend of the White Buffalo occurred at or near the time that Christ was said to have walked the earth.

Hillel the Elder and a mystery named the Teacher of Righteousness appeared about that time as well.

There may have been others we have never heard about.  A renaissance of faith or spirituality for the lack of a better term, happening during the same period in the eastern and western hemispheres.

What prompted this coincidence or is it an on going thing?

The messages do not seem to be all that different from one to the other.  Is there a reason for this or is it my imagination, speculation running amok?

These things happened on opposite sides of the world .  Was there knowledge shared between the hemispheres or is this a natural phenomenon that is to be expected?

White Buffalo Woman and Christ’s period of teaching were relatively short.  A woman in the West, a man in the East.  That is amazing when you thing of it.

There is more we don’t know about the past than events we think we know.

White Buffalo

The Lakota religious system and White Buffalo prophesies are based on a messiah who appeared to them about 2,000 years ago called the White Buffalo Woman, or Ptesan­Wi, as she is called in the Lakota language. (The “Calf” part of her name was added later by fairly recent storytellers.)

The oral tradition says she first appeared to them in the form of a wakan (holy) woman who “floated” above the ground. She stayed among them for a period of time and taught them how to use the buffalo to sustain them, and gave them instruction in seven sacred rites they were to incorporate into their daily lives and preserve and pass down to future generations, similar to the Christian belief in the 10 commandments presented to Moses by the Christian God.

When White Buffalo Calf Woman left the Lakota people, the people saw her walking off in the same direction from which she had come, outlined against the setting sun. As she went, she stopped and rolled over four times. The first time, she turned into a black buffalo; the second into a brown one; the third into a red one; and finally, the fourth time she rolled over, she turned into a white female buffalo calf before disappearing……source AAANAtiveArts.com

This post was inspired by 47whitebuffalo and her blog.

The Sledgehammer and the Fly

The fly rested on the child’s forehead.  Flies are known to be carriers of disease, in this case the disease is cholera.

The sledgehammer comes down.  The fly and the child are no more.

The threat of cholera is gone and people can rest again, knowing they are safe.  Justification comes quickly in respect to the loss of the child.  The fly had touched it, therefore it would have died from cholera anyway, so the right action was prescribed.  The saving of other lives was touted to the people who were there.

However, no one thought to kill the fly with a newspaper or fly swatter, thereby saving the baby’s life to see if in fact the child had contracted cholera or not, or if the child could be saved if he or she did have the disease.

Sad situation isn’t it?  What prompts the sledgehammer solution?

Fear and logical justification.

In reference to the post A deranged psychiatrist, two pistols and nukes, I read with interest the dialog between 47whitebuffalo and Ben.

Ben’s justification for the use and possession of nuclear weapons are in direct conflict with 47whitebuffalo’s argument that nuclear weapons and war are atrocities that should be abolished.

What makes this awareness we call life unique?   The fact that these two ideologies are in conflict and have been since the beginning.

I agree wholeheartedly with 47whitebuffalo’s stance.  I am not a liberal or conservative, but a man who has been around a few years.

I understand the thought process behind Ben’s argument, but it is faulty for there is no thought or concern given to the innocent.  It is a numbers game, them versus us.  Although he cites the theoretical saving of Japanese and American lives, that is only an unproved hypotheses.  We will never know.

War is hell, especially if people are directly involved.  Most people have never been close to war.  It is easy to instigate and promote, but another to carry out and live through.

War is not the way to solve anything.  The nuclear sledgehammer does not belong on earth.

Most people claim to agree with the concept of peace.  How many actually mean it?

Life is not a numbers game.

The good things government do

I and many others criticize our governments frequently, but as compared to many nations and regimes there is a lot of good.

• unemployment insurance
• social security
• welfare
• food stamps
• police protection
• fire protection
• military protection
• no one is refused emergency medical aid for lack of money
• public schools
• roads
• public transportation
• libraries
• parks
• garbage collection
• waste and sewage disposal
• workplace and labor laws
• water treatment and delivery systems

These are just a few facts which came to mind, and I am sure there are many more.

This financial mess that is, would have been a lot worse on the short term if the Wall Street firms would have gone broke.  The fallout would have shaken the world to it’s knees but the government stepped in.

Lest we forget there are two sides to every story.

 

The level of insanity on this world has reached crisis proportions

Forget about “swine flu” or global warming.

Our biggest threat to survival is us.

We the people, who can’t seem to agree on any kind of uniform policy, have elected governments which favor the few.

I read of homeless shelters having to refuse people shelter as there is no room.  People who used to have “jobs”, a place to live and food, and “contribute” to society.

I see sabers rattling in far off lands.  People who are trying to eject invaders and are called “insurgents” are possibly painted with a tainted brush, whereas during the last great war they may have been viewed as the “resistance”.

I see battles looming over potable water supplies, food, energy for home heating.

I see 500 horsepower cars being built, the kind of vehicle which guzzles gas and accelerates quickly, to give a man a sense pf penis superiority, an image of self which is not real.

And where are we now and where are we headed?

During the last one hundred years, since the dawn of technology and science really started making major advances, the art of aggression and war has taken on a new meaning.  An ominous presence in a dirty work which has been part of man’s dark side since day one.

Minds and attitudes have not kept up with what is possible or probable.

This is the dawn of the new age.

What will it look like after we are finished?

Will anyone remember?

A deranged psychiatrist, two pistols and nukes

Hiroshima, one nuclear bomb, over half century ago

The carnage at Fort Hood brings to mind the nuclear installations and weapons in this world.

Fort Hood is a military installation.  One man, a professional officer, with two pistols, illustrated what may happen, even on these secure premises.

What if someone out there believes God or Allah requires him to push one of many red buttons around the world?  I realize there are security requirements, codes and keys.

For someone determined, focused by fear, anger and the belief the Almighty is sending him or her to complete this task, how difficult is it?

What then?

Will we mourn the lives of a city, a nation or the world?

There is no such thing as 100% security for those who are determined.  When there is a will there is a way.

This is the best argument I know of to dismantle the world’s stockpile of nuclear weapons.

It won’t happen.

Castles

i build castles
i trace cavernous rooms
in the sands
in the hallways
of existence
of my mind

so many castles have been
so many walls have been
washed away
washed away
by the waters
by the tears
of life
of joy and sorrow

there is no foundation
all the illusion
for castles which endure
that feeds empty ideas
for those who have
from those who have not
lived in the castle
walked in these shoes
that life has not
that life has not
washed away
seen neccessary to change
thank your
thank you
good fortune
for the treasures you gift me

as you can never
as we can never
be sure.
really know another

Blue is by miss bliss

Connected and Affected

One aspect of life that appears to have validity is our relationship to other people on this planet.

It is as if we are all connected to a degree.  Almost everything we do may affect someone else, good or bad, and that same holds true for events happening that affect us.

A teenage mother for example.  Her pregnancy may be a happy event for a few or chagrin to others.  How she chooses to cope with this event in her life will also affect others.

It is an example most of us are familiar with, but it extends to every area of life.  A receptionist having a bad day and being rude to customers, may influence a recipient to become irritated by her behavior and may become hostile in turn.

Road rage is also a common example of our connectedness as is listening to music which brings a smile of enjoyment to our faces.

The more we are aware of how we influence the lives of others, either positively or negatively, by our presence and behavior, the better we may become, or worse, if that is our intent.

We cannot deny our connectedness.

Another place, another time

“Stones crumble and decay, faiths grow old and they are forgotten but new beliefs are born,” Chief Joseph.

“The moral order has to catch up with the moral necessisties of actual time, here and now.  And that is what we are not doing.  The old-time religion belongs to another age, another people, another set of human values, another universe.

By going back you throw yourself out of sync with history.  Our kids lose their faith in the religions that were taught to them and they go inside.”….Joseph Campbell.

“I sense truth here and now and know perfection and eternity exist, however, it is the understanding of these concepts we fail to grasp.  Yet ,we will come close to understanding and when we do, we shall smile,”….Ichabod.

Did you know the bible is copyright protected?

At first I thought God owned the copyright to the bible as so many people claim God inspired or wrote it.

But no, it wasn’t God who owns the copyright.

I looked at one bible recently and this is what it said, Copyright @ Thomas Nelson Inc. Nashville Tennessee.

How can something that I assumed was public domain have a copyright symbol on it?

Is God getting a piece of the action or are the copyright holders keeping the money to themselves?

I knew there was money in this.

Next week I am going to print one copyright by Ichabod

Do you think I can be sued?

That would be funny wouldn’t it?  Getting sued by a corporation for publishing something they claim is God’s word without having permission or paying royalties.

Maybe they have a contract with God, on stone tablets.

The contract may not be written in English, that would be a difficult one for the courts.  I don’t know what language God writes in, do you?

Do you think we could decipher it?

Who would handle the legal aspects of this lawsuit, if it came into being?  Maybe the ACLU against the attorney general of Tennessee?

This is turning into a master of disaster, all over a stupid copyright claim.

To Love Somebody

The song drifted into my mind

“Baby you don’t know what it’s like….. to love somebody”

It’s true isn’t it?

How often is love returned with the same intensity and desire and without condition as you give unto another?

We are all guilty, of loving and not loving enough in return.

That is why the song, aside from the music, makes sense to my little mind.

Knowing that, I’ll run it through my brain and enjoy.

The loving part gets easier when you open yourself up to the idea of it all

Fantasy, amusement for the imagination

We all get a little tired of life at times.  The ho hum doldrums of day to day existence can be boring unless something comes along to spice it up a little.

However most of us have a little boredom check valve.

It is called fantasy, imagining yourself being and doing the physically impossible.  Have you ever seen somebody you didn’t like and fantasized about being a warlock and zapping the unliked person to another dimension or reducing him or her to a frog.

Or thinking that sleeping beauty is around the corner waiting for your kiss?

Or watching the movie the Lion King and getting into it?

Or thinking for a moment that Excalibur exists and wishing you possessed it?

I like fantasy.  It is totally ridiculous and fun.

Other people

I wrote a post titled Outlawing the Cross, the graven image and received three comments.  These comments were interesting in the fact that each one was a personal experience of the writer.

Sleepyeagle, Writerdood and Blissbait wrote anecdotes of their childhood experience with Christianity.  The experiences had lasting negative effects in respect to the religion.

I have come to know these individuals through their blogs and responses.  They are intelligent, compassionate, possess above average communication skills and are passionate about life.  They are very different people in respect to their backgrounds and in the case of miss bliss, gender.

It is interesting reading how “other” people are affected by something we have all come to accept as part of our society to some degree, whether we agree or not.

How many, who promote their beliefs, realize this is the image they are creating in young minds.

Today there are laws against emotional abuse, some of which is regarded as harmful as physical abuse.

When I read these anecdotes and the lasting effects, I interpret these incidents as a type of emotional abuse.

For a religion to claim promoting love and compassion, and performing these actions on “other” children is contradictory in my mind.

I know it still goes on.

What adults do in the privacy of their own place of worship is one thing.  Like a drunk going into a bar, there is a time and place for that.

To expose these beliefs on the innocent, is another.

Ever wonder why pilots get paid so much?

I realize their uniforms look great, but is the job that difficult to warrant $250,ooo salaries?

From what I have been reading lately, the pilots of the old biplanes had it rough compared to today’s pilots.

They walk around the plane, kick the tires and make sure nothing is falling off, step into the cockpit with glowing indicators and switches and are served coffee by a friendly attendant.

They turn on the ignition key, fire up the jets, warm it up a little and head off down the runway.  Once they start, they give it full throttle , pull back on the steering wheel and off they go.  Then it is auto pilot, a little time on the internet with their laptops, flirt with staff members, take a nap, whatever.

One old bush pilot once told me flying was 99 percent boredom and 1 percent sheer terror, but that is a bush pilot who is used to overloading his fifty year old plane past capacity and taking off and landing in the worst conditions.

When there is a problem up there, all a pilot has to do is turn on the intercom, speak in a low, calm voice to assure the passengers he knows what he is doing, then do everything he can to save the plane as his own ass is on the line as well.

Anyway,  that is my take on piloting for big bucks.

Selling your daughter as slave and private torch parties

The people who are bound and determined to make life hell for those who do not buy into the fallacy that the bible or the old testament is the word of god had not seen this short presentation titled an open letter to Dr. Laura Schlessinger.

I would like to thank Lynn from Trippin’ with Rip for this treat, which is not only humorous but illustrates the absurdities of the old testament.

As I am a Canadian, I hope the faithful in the USA don’t get any ideas.

Outlawing the Cross, the graven image.

Christians will band together and claim persecution. Many will believe the “rapture” is real and they will be plucked off the rooftops while God, enraged, will wipe out the human population, making life safe for dinosaurs again.

Rome – Italians reacted with outrage on Tuesday after a European court ruled that displaying crucifixes in the country’s schools violated the principle of secular education.

Italy’s education minister condemned the judgment by the European Court of Human Rights, saying that the Christian cross was a symbol of the country’s Roman Catholic religion and cultural identity….source yahoo.com.

I wonder what the Italians would say if the symbols of Buddha, Islam or any other major religion were to appear in their schools.  They wouldn’t like it I am sure.

The European judgment was correct, not only to secular law, but to the law as laid out in the Christian Bible.

One of the Commandments that Moses brought down said this, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: “

Is the cross and the man hanging from it not a graven image?

Aside from the regular arguments we all hear, what about young children having to observe a man in agony dying on a cross.  Not the stuff we should be teaching our kids is acceptable, in the way of doing unto others or being a victim of.  It would be like showing the film “The Exorcist” in schools claiming it is culture or heritage, wouldn’t it?

I received sleepyeagle’s comment to this post which reinforces the fact that the law made the correct decision:

When I was young, my grandparents would take me every year to some big ass church in Winston Salem for an Easter play. This church had an enormous budget for the wretched thing, so they always went for grandeur.

At the age of 8, I watched what seemed to be a very real crucification, complete with whips, blood, and screams. There was even a part when they dimmed the lights and little demons ran around trying to scare everyone.

It was at that time that I knew religion was nothing more than a show. All the symbols, rules, and stories were just props.

That scene with the man on the cross bleeding all over himself and screaming in agony remains the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen, on film or in person.

Their infatuation with the cross is what led me away from Christianity.

writerdood had an experience which needs to be told.  The atrocities in the name of God which people who claim to be doing God’s work is criminal in my mind.

I had something similar happen to me, although a bit less dramatic. It was at church camp when I was fourteen. We sang songs around a camp fire every night. This night, the councilors said there would be something special. We all gathered around the circle – probably about forty of fifty of us, and all around the same age. Tonight, the camp fire was dark, for some reason. One of the councilors got up and started talking to us.

He gave us a big speech about how there was a war going on RIGHT NOW, and that there would be winners and losers. He talked about how some of us would be lost forever, and that even our parents might be gone. (At first I thought he was about to tell us that we’d gone to war with the USSR). Fortunately, it wasn’t that dire. He was talking about our immortal souls, and how Angels were battling Demons at this very MOMENT! (Very dramatic). He then started talking about God, and how great God was, and how God created the universe from nothing. A lengthy description of that empty nothingness was finally followed by his loud declaration, “and then God said, LET THERE BE LIGHT!”

At this point, someone in a tree outside the camp fire circle light a ball of paper soaked in gasoline on fire, and let it slide down a string. It “wooshed” down out of the trees like a fire sent from heaven. It hit the extinguished camp fire, which had also been sprinkled with gas, and burst into flames, causing the entire area to be illuminated very brightly.

In that moment, I saw the faces of the people around me. I saw how they looked awestruck by this event, as if they were witnessing a miracle. And I realized that the mentality behind the philosophy was corrupt. This, to me, was a blasphemy. These people were “playing” God. They were attempting trickery in order to further their own ends. This was a drama to them. It was a game to be played. Never mind that they might actually believe that they were “saving some souls” through the drama and subterfuge, the heresy of it made it inherently despicable.

I was angry. I mean REALLY pissed. How stupid did they think we were? They must know that we knew, so then why do it? Why the drama? Why “play” God? I got up and walked out of the circle and went back to my cabin. I refused to talk with them about it. And when I left camp, I never went back. It was the beginning of my cynical and cold analysis of my own religion. An analysis that drove me into science and evolution and a complete rejection of Biblical literalism. Not that I ever forgot what I had been raised to know.

As you sow, so shall you reap. I remember that well enough. So should they.

miss bliss has a story which needs to be passed on as well.

amazing post. Religious people will never cease to amaze me. You already know my run in with my preacher at age ten. Funny, around the same age, maybe at eleven, I went to church camp. Good Lord. We weren’t even a churchy family, so to this day I really can’t remember what in the world I was doing there. I rememeber some fun. And I remember it being dramatic and crying a lot about Jesus. Lord. But the thing I remember most was a song we were made to memorize. And here I am, thirty-f-in-years later with the wretched thing still etched in my brain:

life was filled with guns and wars
and everyone was trapled on the floor
i wish we’d all been ready

children died the days were cold
a piece of bread would buy a bag of gold
i wish we’d all been ready
there’s no time to change your mind
the son has come and you’ve been left behind

two men walking up a hill
one disappears the other’s left standing still
i wish we’d all been ready

man and wife asleep in bed
she hears a noise and turns her head he’s gone
i wish we’d all been ready

there’s no time to change your mind
how could you have been so blind
the father spoke the demon lied
the sun has come and you’ve been left behind
you’ve been left behind

WTF???!!! It just occurred to me why I probably cried a good bit there. I was horribly frightened of being abandoned as my father had skipped out when I was two and never wanted to know me. So you take an eleven year old girl who already feels something must be horribly wrong with her, and teach her that God will abandon her and she’ll be left to the hounds of hell if she messes up.

Somebody…please ship these people to another planet. Sigh.

Many forget the words of the one they claim they follow, “for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves”.

Civil disobedience or exercising freedom?

The news banner screamed Breckenridge, Colorado voters legalize marijuana.

That is their right, whether you agree or not.

How are the Feds going to deal with this?

Send in the troops, surveillance equipment?  Will the DEA have their agents crawling through Breckenridge, identifying insurgents.  Will Gitmo stay open so the CIA can torture these traitors?

How could they do this to the establishment, which makes so much coin for keeping mary jane illegal?

Will the weed start the next civil war in the USA?

I don’t smoke the stuff, don’t want to.  But I understand for adults that do, whose right is it to tell them they can’t?

After all, isn’t freedom what the young people are dying for on the other side of the ocean?

 

Father and Son

who loves
who more

the son
the father
or
the father
the son

when the son
goes
into battle
to defend
the father

and dies

is that
not
love

the father
who sends
his son
into
battle

is that love

what father
sends his son
to war

when the father
would
pick up
the sword

to defend
his son

that is love

I wrote the above while thinking of a story I have heard so many times in my life, “God sacrificed his only begotten son.”

It was said that the son cried out, “Father, father, why hast though forsaken me?” at the end.

If my son would cry those words to me whilst dying, I could never forgive myself  and that which we refer to as hell would be my state of being.

If we as humans, or at least many of us, would rather sacrifice self than our children, why not God?

In observing the animal kingdom, animals will risk their lives without thinking twice to protect their offspring.

Fear will justify for some to sacrifice another, doesn’t it?

I preach Peace

to those who will hear
peace is like a balm
for my soul
my spirit
does not desire
the other

i see and hear
the other
everywhere

from those
who prefer
earthly desires

and care not
for those
such as i

my soul withers
and spirit folds
to see and hear
the other

till the time comes
when it is almost over
when choice is no longer

of our making
when the other comes
into our home

then spirit rises
and soul fills
to carry the banner
of peace

forevermore

Meaningless

i am
i see
i hear

to what
does it avail

a
moment
of self glory
in
the
ocean
of
mankind

a
moment
of
disgust
in
the ocean
of
mankind

a
second
of
love

in
the
puddle
of
life

is
it
meaningless

except
to
self

The Fiesta

 

One aspect of Mexican culture I appreciate is the fiesta.

Small fiesta or large they are the same.

Time has no meaning nor does social class.  They come together, men, women and children.  Food and drink are plentiful, music is in abundance and the gathering reigns supreme.

They all enjoy, for a moment in time, being together and alive.

What this world needs is a fiesta. 

Two People….

“It is funny to me, considering how intelligent we think we are, that we believe that work is the most rewarding thing we can be doing on a daily basis. I find work to be an impediment to creativity. Interaction with people in most economic interactions is fairly impersonal and there are many economic situations that I would rather avoid. The oddest part of this is that the people that have most of the cash need us to be available to work so they can do what they want, and the fantasy is, if we work hard enough, we can do what we want, if we make enough money, and if we get damaged or break along the way, too bad. If workers unite to protect their interests, there is great concern. there are too many times in human history where workers overstep their boundaries and force is required to bring workers back to the reality that the oligarchy knows what is best for us all.”….bouzouki.

ICHABOD: A WAR BETWEEN THE USA&COLOMIA VS VENEZUELA STARTED TONIGHT. CARACAS AND MARACAIBO WERE A COUPLE OF MY OUTS.

My other out was Asuncion,Paraguay,where a death squad has formed and is likely to take a run at Lugo and if successful either takecontrol or return the country´s rule to the Ovelar-duarte family.

Chavez seemed chipper which could mean he´s got Russia on board for a fullon war with the USA or at least some brinksmanhip. It´s good that chavez and Lula are speaking again and in no uncertain terms he made clear that there was to be no fucking around again.

My task is getting my step kids and their grandma into Panama and if we have to leave I´d prefer a Spanish speaking country. Spain is horrible unless yuu have good connectiion in the two regions which don´t speak Spanish: el pais vasco y calauña.

Basically, i have to find out the rules for every country and pick. I promised I´d go beyond that for Cindy Sheehan plus get her a top flight DC attorney through my NYC connections.

And you take it as it comes one day at a time with a master plan.

I always land on my feet. I always showup when someone needs help, especially someone I love.

Something had been nagging at me since June. And I can´t put my finger on it. Maybe it was that stupid Fathers Day thing by some taint who warned all of Americá´s fathers that they´d better shape up or ship out. Accompaning it was a thing that said Gingrch (now in hthe Obama admin!!) was 2x divorced.

So am I. I think I´m better looking than he is. I´m smarter. I have been an excellent father and now I get to be a atepfather. I know I´ve fucked more women by accident than he has by design.* I´ve spoken on finance many many times and knew what I was talking about.

I´m a humanist. He´s a tyrant. I almost would take a run at him if I weren´t in some kind of trouble and I stilldon´t know what law I broke!

Then, I looked at the blog. First of all, my own work was pure crapola. The majority of the rest was war-mongering Obama-luv save Fred, Mencken, Baton Rouge, TheBoss, and that´s it. I don´t lend my name to war criminals. Not Bush. Not Obama. Not the Demopublican or Repubicrat party.

I was disappointed that Reed felt the same way but them´s the breaks. I was felled by my desire to share. BAD IDEA. I´ll patch it up with him, Meanwhhile, I owe my partner some work.

I can´t do anything like this for awhile. I think Diane is right. I´ve gone way too native and i can tell it´s affecting my writing and my approch to life. There are very few places on Earth as peacfulas Panama. There are only a handful of Spanish speaking countries as traditional. To break every campaign promise,become violent but scared to deal with the consequences is quite simply NOT MASCULINE. This isn´t anything to with being gay. The FERIA GAY season is upon us and it´s really a good time. The float captains are obsessive. Big party.

I´ve always had a big problem with Obama´s homophobia and that was a problem. Bush was a total bastard but not a homophobe or even a racist really. Violent just like Obama. I´m done with this response because I get very tired writing engish and it´s the oppressors´language anyway.

I was stupid and didn´t make the break when I should have. And the deaths and drones. I´d ratherwrite for JANE´S if I´m writing pro-war shit.

I could always break my son´s trust and go to Monaco. Ilove it there.

I´ve done some good stuff at Cindy´s in long form: in finance and politics and reuniting with on of my serious mentors, Marc Faber.

And there´s no QUARTET I´d rather sink or swim with than: CINDY SHEEHAN´S SOAPBOX, THE BLACK AGENDA REPORT, DAVID SWANSON´s CAMPAIGN FOR LIBERTY, AND JUSTIN RAIMONDO´S ANTIWAR.COM

LEFTISM, BLACK POWER, SOUTHERN LIBERTARIANISM. PRO-VETERAN PRO-GAY LIBERTARIANIISM. HOW GREAT IS THAT?

The other thing about Cindy I like is the threads are very long and she´ll encourage fighting ideologies because she thinks it unifies and gets everybody more aware of everyone else. I´ll fight with her over finance issues like crazy but it´s a different kind offightinh…….Kelso’s Nuts.

The White Flag

To my knowledge the white flag, signified two messages.

Surrender or desire to communicate with enemies on neutral ground.

I don’t know if most would know that today.

I think it is about time the White flag is raised, not one of surrender, but communication on neutral ground.

Peace.

The United States of America is fighting wars all over the world.  People in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, South America are dying or suffering from other causes than hunger or corrupt government.

It is the Stars and Stripes they fear.

No other country in the world is involved in so many wars.

No other country has a military funded to the size of the Uncle Sam’s.  A war time military machine designed for aggression, not self defense.

Who has threatened Uncle Sam with invasion?  One terrorist act, however horrible, does not make a war or invasion.  The loss of innocent life in the ensuing years is stunning.

No one knows the real toll.  The MSM is hiding the atrocities, the insults to freedom and peace that the CIA and the Pentagon are involved with.

Who controls this war machine?  The citizen?

Or the man with the coin?

What will happen when someone crosses the border with a white flag?

Will Uncle Sam blow him or her out of the water or bury them in jail.

This world requires no “Super Power.”

This world does not need weapons of mass destruction in any country’s arsenal.

This world needs a few more White flags.

My flag is the White flag, not of surrender, but of peace.

I was a religious man once…..

I think back on those times when I was between twenty-five and thirty-five years of age.

Like everything I find of interest in my life, I took to it with the zeal bordering on obsession.

My outlook changed.  I read the bible everyday.  After all, it was inspired by God.

I viewed other people as living carcasses while I was full of light and alive.   I stayed away from everything that was deemed to be sinful, by church, man, the bible and I.  Not that I was that successful at it, but I tried.

My character, which is basically a non conforming one, couldn’t stand being in jail anymore and finally broke free.

A few events started my mind shifting in another direction from the book.  I used to love it and read it in a way which was detrimental to growth.  My mind closed itself to the obvious, that which I see now, but didn’t see then

One morning I got up and reached for the leather bound book that I loved, and realized I loved it.

I love a stupid book!

Something inside me said,”hey wait a minute, isn’t that like idolatry?   You love the book more than anything else.  You know most of the words that are important to you.  Do you study other books you liked over and over and over?”

I was sobered by those thoughts.  God wouldn’t have the world be dependent on a book, would God?  What about all the people in the world who can’t read or if they could, could not understand?  Are they damned?

Then I realized this does not make sense.  I was not born with a book in my hands.  I was born with eyes, a brain, ears and a mouth.   There have been civilizations in the past that did not read or write,  yet some of these people from those civilizations were very advanced in their thinking about many subjects.

I laid down the book and started looking at life without the blinders on.  It’s a hell of an experience looking at life they way it is meant to be viewed, not through another person’s interpretation of it, whether it be written or verbal.

As far as that feeling I had of being full of light and alive, still get it.  Difference is I no longer view other people as carcasses.  Now I think they are merely aliens.

The Dog and the Patio Door

The barking was driving me nuts so I went downstairs to take a look. We have a Griffin we brought inside from the kennel to keep an eye on her and she was going crazy.

It was her reflection in the patio door.  Being a dog with little intellect, she didn’t realize it was her that she was barking at.

I shook my head and tried to get her to stop barking to no avail, finally I put something in front of the door so she couldn’t see herself and she quieted down.

Reminds me of people sometimes, dogs do.

Get all riled up and bark continuously at something they see, not realizing they do the same things themselves.

“Dad, what’s wrong with people?”

My son called me, a little upset.

He had started going out once in a while on his way home from work and having a beer with his coworkers.

I warned him against it, as he has a good job and the head honcho is good to him.   Kids never listen to us older folk, so he decided to try it anyway.

“You can’t trust them Dad,” he was not a happy camper, “we talk shop and a couple of days later they are pulling something off, trying to make someone look bad, you name it.  Now one of them said something to the general manager and told him I said it, and I didn’t!”

“Son, the guy who signs your paycheck should be your only loyalty.  He pays you to perform a certain function to the best of your ability and to do it honestly.  Those guys you are talking about, they are out to screw the world and are worse than old gossips.  They aren’t paying you.  Keep the people you work with at arms length and don’t go out having beers with them.  Find someone who is not involved with your income to have a beer with.  You’ll sleep better at night.”

“Jeez Dad, a hundred years ago a man’s handshake was his word.”

“Not really, just as many then as now.  These guys you work with have kids, and these kids are likely to be the same as their parents, for that is how kids learn.  It’s a battle that has always been.  There are many people you can have a handshake agreement with, but you have to learn how to tell the difference between the people you work with and them, you will.” 

 

In order to prevent dementia, I will become a negative thinker

I am doing this for self preservation.

SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) – Bad moods can actually be good for you, with an Australian study finding that being sad makes people less gullible, improves their ability to judge others and also boosts memory.

The study, authored by psychology professor Joseph Forgas at the University of New South Wales, showed that people in a negative mood were more critical of, and paid more attention to, their surroundings than happier people, who were more likely to believe anything they were told.

“Whereas positive mood seems to promote creativity, flexibility, cooperation, and reliance on mental shortcuts, negative moods trigger more attentive, careful thinking paying greater attention to the external world,” Forgas wrote….source yahoo.com.

The biggest problem I am having is I am becoming positive about my negative moods, because my negative mood is helping me remember more as I get older.   I am very positive about the results, decreasing the benefits of my negative moods.

Damn, I can’t seem to win.  One of these days they’ll be taking me away in a straight jacket, my lips smacking and my eyeballs spinning from having a burnt our brain.

I think I’ll stay human and ignore this stuff they publish, memory be damned.

Dying Man’s Daily Journal…..

…..is having a party.

Dying Man’s Daily Journal is not what you would think it is, but a little different.

The author Bill Howdle is suffering heart disease and a brain tumor and has lived four years with this situation.

“I genuinely mean this with all of my heart as I propose a toast to every person on this planet. “May the very best day in you past be not nearly as good as the worst day in your future”

I am not sure how this time delay thing is working or even if there is one. I am responding to the wonderful comments as quickly as I can. Can anyone tell me, is the a delay,”….Bill Howdle.

I encourage you to pay him a visit and leave a comment or two…

Maybe we can put a smile on a Bill’s face

About Us.

rarely is it heard
this life
is about us
for us

conflict within
is caused by us

we can’t understand
when we fall into

the sea of life
and struggle
to the surface
for air

we are surrounded
by the liquid of being
we are wet
after we step ashore

the liquid of being
evaporates
and will be
no more

Appreciation

 

I opened my eyes this morning
and stepped outside
the sky was black and snow had fallen
whilst i slept

the air is fresh and clean
and all is quiet
a time for reflection

“who cares?” thought i
what the mortals of this world
find to be of importance

for this is a new day
while angst and collisions abound
in this spiritual framework
we call life

i will not get involved
and play the game
with strife

for now
i have a full belly
and smiling faces in my home

what else can a man
want or desire
on a snowy morn?

Is God confused?

It may appear that way or God is not a great manager, as those who say they represent God on earth are sending out very mixed messages.

On the other hand, it may be simply a matter of communications, with the people who claim to work for God not understanding.   That is pretty easy to do.

ARLINGTON, Texas – At Saint Mary the Virgin Catholic Church, the 75-year-old priest is married, members sing from an Episcopalian hymnal and parishioners kneel at the altar to receive Communion.

Years ago, the Texas parish and a handful of other conservative Episcopal churches in the U.S. decided to become Roman Catholic. Though they were confirmed by the Vatican, they were still allowed to practice some of their Anglican traditions, including having married priests.

Now, these churches may have helped pave the way for Anglicans worldwide, or Episcopalians as they are known in the U.S., to become Catholic under a new Vatican plan created to make it easier for such conversions. The surprise move revealed in October is designed to entice traditionalists opposed to women priests, openly gay clergy and blessing of same-sex unions. …. source msnbc.com.

It is amazing when it comes to money, even faith is affected.  Now that Islam and other faiths are recruiting members during a world wide economic crisis, what was once held as unshakable dogma is now relegated as unimportant to satisfy the desires of potential converts.

In other words, when times get tough, the hypocrisy becomes more and more apparent.

Especially to someone who observes this from the outside.

The Tarantula and the Mouse

It was big and ugly looking with a bulbous body and long hairy legs. It was walking on the sidewalk in front of my home near the entryway, not coming toward the house but in the direction of the sidewalk.

Needless to say the women didn’t like it and I daresay none of the men.

I didn’t like the looks of the thing either, but it wasn’t hurting anyone and did not pose a threat.  One of my guests caught it in a plastic bottle he cut open for this task and burned it.

I thought about it later and decided we killed it for no good reason.  It wasn’t hurting anyone, probably wouldn’t, and we killed it because we didn’t like its appearance.

I am working on an addition to my house and the last couple of days I see a mouse scooting here and there in the addition.

Today he was five feet away from me, looked right at me and when I moved, he didn’t flinch.

Damn!  I thought.  Gutsy little critter.

I don’t know why the mouse decided to live in my addition, but he was there.  I was thinking to myself, do I buy poison or a mousetrap?

Then I remembered the tarantula.

No, I thought.   I’ll catch it and move it somewhere where it won’t bother me.

Some people may think I am crazy, but to me the tarantula and the mouse are not a threat and minding their own business.  Who am I to kill for no reason?  If the mouse had Bubonic Plague or carried something else, that is another story.

Have you ever fallen asleep with your eyes open?

Were you too scared to close your eyes, to sleep?

Did you think you may not wake up?

Or that the nightmare that left you a mass of jelly the night before will return. You know it’s only a dream, but to you it seemed so bloody real.  You were in it, the star, and they were after you.

You realized it was a nightmare and tried to wake up and couldn’t.  Finally you saw the light by forcing eyelids open with your own fingers, relieved you were able to escape from your own mind.

What would have happened if you hadn’t seen the light of reality?

Would you still be in that nightmare, or would it be in you?

Tonight is the night!

every year
on Hallow’s eve
he mounts his beast
to find me

every year
i manage to flee
the beast’s eyes
and the sword

his head no more
hate still stands
forevermore

why?

only he knows
the nemesis
of the zone
called twilight

who
shall
reign
tonight?

Who needs Heaven or Hell when we have the Twilight Zone?

PV
Ichabod

TWILIGHT ZONE,  the Other Dimension –No one knows about this place called the Twilight Zone and the government of the Twilight Zone desires to make itself known in order to increase its population and encourage tourism.  PV has taken the liberty of interviewing the Voice of the Twilight Zone.

“Tell me, what is so special about the Twilight Zone,”  PV.

“Everything!” exclaimed the Voice, “No one knows a damn thing about it.  On earth they have all kinds of experts on Heaven and Hell, but they have never been able to figure out the Twilight Zone because unlike the other two, we exist!”   The voice couldn’t help but smile.

“You’re looking to publicize immigration and tourism, why?”

“We are not hypocrites.  We need coin and souls and don’t make any bones about it.”

“What’s so special about the Twilight Zone, let’s say over Heaven and Hell?”  PV asked.

“We have no limitations.  Whatever experience you want, we can provide.  Good, bad or indifferent and no one will be telling you which one you must take.  We are the dimension of freedom and liberty and do not kowtow to any other place out there in Neverland.”

“This will be a challenge to market,” PV mused.

“Not really,” replied the Voice, “We have a team going in to convert evangelists, priests, rabbis, politicians, movie stars, shamans, ayatollahs, popes and pastors to our cause. We are offering them freedom of thought and expression.  We believe that once they finally allow themselves out of the box, they will be fervent disciples to the cause of the Twilight Zone.”

“I wish you the best of luck!”

“Thank you,” replied the Voice.

There was AP, Reuters, Fox, MSM and now PV takes over.

PV

TWILIGHT ZONE,  the Other Dimension – Editor, publisher, reporter, type setter and delivery boy, Ichabod,  recently announced the grand opening of the new PV news wire, dedicated to making himself rich by selling propaganda from the Twilight Zone to all the other sucker news outlets crazy enough to buy it, and according to him, there are plenty of them around.

“This will be a unique, one of a kind service.  We will be publishing anything that happens of interest in all of the communities which make up the Twilight Zone,”  Ichabod announced.  “Places like Hell, Heaven, Nirvana, Limbo, Enlightenment, the Dark Side, the Happy Hour and all those little places in between will receive extensive coverage through our medians, fortune tellers, experts, crystal ball gazers, prophets and plain old reporters.”

“That is a major undertaking.  Will you be performing human interest pieces, interviews or hard news?”

“We will cover it all.  Anyone who has been a has been and is now in the realm of the Twilight Zone will be scrutinized and reported on for news, views and interest,” Ichabod smiled.

“Do you think you will be successful?”

“Of course.  We plan on distributing our issues to supermarket cash register stands immediately.   The supermarkets have been devoting real estate to gossip magazines for years, even though no one will admit to reading them, everyone buys them!”  Ichabod laughed as he filled up his bank deposit bag.

The Money Factory is going broke…

….and requires a bail out as it can’t afford to buy that special paper needed to print legal tender on and ink supplies are getting low. The factory is down to a weeks supply of ink.

According to the CEO and president, Counter Feit, the Money Factory requires a $100 billion taxpayer injection to survive and needs it in a week.

“Mr Feit, do you think you will be able to survive this economic crisis the Money Factory is experiencing?” asked the reporter from Plain View.

“We do have one last ace up our sleeve in case those tightwad taxpayers won’t come up with the coin,” Feit answered.

“What may that be?”

“We have just enough paper and ink to print the money to lend ourselves,” Feit smiled.

“Why don’t you? It would save the taxpayers plenty of grief and your action would be viewed widely as an act of patriotism!” The reporter’s chest puffed out in pride.

“My biggest problem is which currency should I print? If I print $100 Billion US today and it is worth $50 Billion tomorrow, I won’t be able to print anymore and we will still go broke!”

“Why not print Chinese money?” The reporter asked.

“Now why didn’t I think of that?”

The blood and the ground

I cut myself accidentally a week ago and I bled.

I wrapped my hand in a towel and waited but it would not stop.  I drove into town and bought some bandages and wrapped the wound good and tight.   A few hours later it all appeared fine.

I jumped on the tractor to finish some things that needed to be done before the snow flies. After an hour I felt this strange stickiness on the steering wheel and I noticed the blood.

I had been dripping blood all over the fender and it shocked me a little seeing the red on the green paint.

I parked the tractor and attended to my wound.

I few days later, I saw the blood on the fender, a reminder of what had occurred.

Last night it rained through the night and as I stepped outside this morning I looked at the tractor where my blood had been.

It had washed away, into the ground.

I wondered, what would become of my DNA that filtered therein?

Have you ever looked into the eyes of someone…

…who was singing to you?

her words were
food for my soul.
her eyes touched mine

we both
traveled a journey
for a moment
in time.

Her enchanting song
carried us
our eyes held us

two strangers walking
hand in hand
on the shore
of the sea

called life.

The Albino Ox and the Gypsy

A few years back we were told it was only a two hour drive through the Sierra Madres to our destination.

It was early in the afternoon so we decided to go, I was driving.

We never reached our goal that night, as the twists and turns of the ribbon they called a road threading through the mountains was never ending.

We saw very few people once the journey started and as the sun set we had no idea how much further we had to go.  We passed a few places where people dwelt which had no electricity.  They lived like ancestors.

I rounded one corner.  There he stood, an albino ox, forcing me to stop.  A magnificent animal, out of place, yet right where he belonged.   He stared at the headlights of my vehicle a moment then moved away.

A military checkpoint in the middle of nowhere advised us strongly not to proceed.  The road was far too dangerous and the bandits are always on the prowl after the sun goes down.  We found a little place that rented rooms a few miles away and I looked at the bare bulb hanging on the ceiling of our room, wondering what this experience will bring.

At dawn, I discovered a pump in front of a shack and another customer banging on the door, waking the owner inside.  We fueled up and continued our journey through paradise.

The plains were a welcome sight after the twists and turns.  I turned into a roadside station to purchase some food.  A gypsy approached me and asked if I would like my fortune told.

I looked at her and smiled, “No thanks, not today.”

The future they call tomorrow

It comes quickly enough, tomorrow does, but is never here today.

For many, that can be exasperating.

Being told the recession is over, they are counseled that they may not notice it.  They will have to wait till tomorrow.

And for some, tomorrow never comes.

“I do not!”…Hillary Clinton

A Pakistani asked Clinton how she would define terrorism.

“Is it the killing of people in drone attacks?” she asked. That woman then asked if Clinton considers drone attacks and bombings like the one that killed more than 100 civilians in the city of Peshawar earlier this week to both be acts of terrorism.

“I do not,” replied Clinton.

One member of the Pakistani audience said the Predator attacks amount to “executions without trial” for those killed….source yahoo.com.

The armchair war.  Sit back on the couch, look at a memo informing you there are insurgents located at certain coordinates and push a button.

Easy as that.

Murder in the first degree.

That’s the problem with Big Sammy.  No soul.

I have a hammer

It is a basic tool.  There are automated hammers out there but this one suits me fine.  It has a good balance and feel.

On the weekends or in the evenings I use it.  Hammering nails, pulling nails, tapping something lose or something in, using it as a crude pry bar and if need arises, I could also use it for self-defense.

Quite a versatile object a hammer is.

The nice part about a hammer, all you need is an arm to swing it.  You don’t need electricity or fossil fuels, don’t require insurance and if someone steals it, it is replaced easily and cheaply enough.

All it takes is a little practice to get focused on what you are hammering and learn to use its swing for maximum force.

As simple as a hammer is, they still sell a pile of them every year.

That aspect of life, the simple hammer and the fact it is still popular, renews my faith in humanity.

 

End of life counselor

 

With the “end of life counseling” being included in the new health care package, permitting payment for patients to speak to doctors once every five years on how they should prepare for their demise, I wondered what they would talk about.

“Doctor, I want end of life counselling.”

“You’re only ten years old and in perfect health, I don’t see the need,”  the doctor answered.

“You are getting paid by Big Sammy, and I want everything that is coming to me!”  The kid was a little tyrant.

“OK, let’s assume you are going to die next month.  I will help you prepare.”

“Have you ever been dead before?”

“Of course not,” the doctor replied.

“How do you know then?”  The kid was persistent.

“Know what?”

“How to counsel me if you were never dead?”

“We are trained for this,” the doctor replied.

“Who taught you, dead people?”

“This is going nowhere, your mother is looking for you!”  The doctor was getting more than annoyed.

“Ma, the doctor told me I’m going to die next month!”

“I wish time would go quicker!”

I picked her up at school and she told me time was rolling too slow for her.

It brought back memories when I was a teenager.  I couldn’t wait to get older.  Drivers license, bars, voting and women were all in the future and the future was not traveling fast enough for me.

Time dragged on.

“Enjoy it!” I said.

She looked at me perplexed.

“When I was a teenager, I felt the same as you.  Older people told me that time goes too fast. Now I am older I can tell you why, as it races for me.”

“Why?” she asked.

“If you are ten years old, you have been around for one hundred and twenty months, so a summer vacation as compared to your life is a long time.  For me, who has been around for a lot longer, one or two months as compared to the time I am here is a drop in the bucket.  It’s relative.  For me, a day seems like an hour compared to my age.  Do you understand?”

“I think so.”

“Trust me, thirty years from now, you’ll be thinking that time is going way too fast.  You know what will happen then?”

“No.”

“You’ll remember this conversation I am having with you, because you don’t believe me and you’ll think, damn, that Ichabod was right!”

She smiled.

“So enjoy it!”

The Realization of Fear

It is only while living on the brink of oblivion that people discover who they really are inside. Most don’t cut the mustard. They don’t have anything to live for other than what they are told they live for. They look to some other life for their redemption, all the while putting off living the one life they have. They have sold their souls for the most part for nothing but more fear. To push them far enough past all that fear, so they have nothing left to lose isn’t a useless gesture. Since we have all been slaves to a system which we helped construct, and reinforce it at all costs, a sword may be the only thing that does cut it anymore. It’s always been just a choice, but most don’t understand the consequences of living in fear. All I am becoming is consequence. It is not good or bad. It is just an inevitable consequence of people choosing fear over love….Jim Lunsford

The never fading light year

PARIS (AFP) – It took 13 billion years to reach Earth, but astronomers have seen the light of an exploding mega-star that is the most distant object ever detected, two studies published Thursday reported.

The stunning gamma-ray burst (GRB) was observed by two teams of researchers in April, and opens a window onto a poorly known period when the Universe was in its infancy.

GRBs are the most violent explosions known to exist, and can be 10 million times more luminous than the brightest of galaxies….source yahoo.com.

I suppose it must be nice to be able to measure the age of the images that are being received.

What really surprises me, is in the 13 billion years for these images to get to planet earth, nothing ever got in the way to stop the light from getting to planet earth.

That’s a helluva a long time.

Considering we can’t even figure out our own history accurately over the span of mere thousands of years, we can accurately guesstimate an event we see happen now from 13 billion years ago.

What if the light travels in gigantic circles, will we be able to eventually see our own history 13 billion years from now?

Does anyone care?

Catching flies with chopsticks

That is what science represents to me at times.

When and if the fly is caught,  it is deemed a new discovery and no one can dispute it is as the dead fly is there for the world to see.

Like Einstein’s theories, which took approximately 100 years, a team of scientists and computers to prove “correct”.

For those people with organized lives, getting up in the morning to a routine, stepping out on the concrete sidewalks of the world that guide them to their vehicles which take them on the exact same route to work in the morning to perform the same routine tasks called work, it is easy to categorize science as a fixed methodological activity, discipline, or study that is ruled by logic and constants proved or likely to be true.

Science, like everything else we humans are faced with in life, is not perfect.

If it was, we would not be quarreling about global warming as there are scientists on both side of the fence on this one,  the beginning of life, evolution, the moral repercussions of nuclear fission,  and so many other aspects of life.

Human behavior, which psychologist spend years on studying and issuing reports on, may be categorized and people determined to react a certain way in certain circumstance, but there is always the exception to every rule.  A wild card.

In this life, we can only be certain of one thing, I think.  While I am writing this I am alive.  Whether I will be seconds or minutes from now will be anyone’s guess.  The scientific probability is I will be alive seconds or minutes from now.  Yet,  someone could drive a truck through the wall of my house.  It will probably never happen.  Could it?  It is scientifically possible.

That’s life, trying to catch a fly with chopsticks.

I believe in rain

 

We take water for granted.  I like water as I can make coffee with it, go sailing on it, fish in it, look at it, drink it straight, clean stuff with it, play in it, bath in it and float in it.

When I am sleeping, I can even walk on it.

Water is great and is free, at least rain water is.

Without it, we would be pretty ugly and dead as we are mostly water.

What do we do with the free stuff we take for granted and allows us to live?

We throw chemicals in it, garbage in it and sewage in it.

There ought to be a law.

 

ίππος μέλας

The Black Horse of the Apocalypse representing famine.

It is a metaphor and I believe people who lived in the days when this was written had a good feel for hunger as there was no refrigeration, mass transportation, rail lines, tractors, combines  or supermarkets which we have come to take for granted in the first world.

Yet in the third world, many live as in the days when the story of the four horsemen was written.

With more than one out of six people going hungry on this planet I wonder if ίππος μέλας isn’t being let loose.

Teaching children how to be good hypocrites

“Go to your room, this is an adult conversation!”

They just started talking about someone and the juicy details were beginning to come out.

“Now!”

We went to the bedroom and left the door open a crack so we could hear every word.

The character assassination would begin and judgments are passed along with a number of things the person talked about should have done or should do, many of which the gossips wouldn’t do themselves..

I would go to bed wondering about the individual they were talking about and thinking how I should best react the next time I saw him or her.  Should I be aloof, accusatory, ignore them or be friendly just to piss of the people who talked about them.

Then a week or so later you would hear your parents preaching about how low it is to gossip.

What!

My father smoked cigarettes all his life and told me how rotten a habit it was.  So I started smoking too.  Everyone was in the smoking game back then, it wasn’t normal being a non smoker in those days.

Now we are in the year 2009 and wondering what is happening to this world and seeing a younger generation just as full of lies as ours had been.

We wonder why.

I wonder if we taught our children hypocrisy too well?

It doesn’t matter :)

I learned a new lesson in life these last few days.

It is a good lesson.

Someone has been attacking me with messages and libel on this site and on other sites, raising my ire and revulsion.  My anger took over.  I had to justify this and make it right.

After all, what will people think of me?

I responded in anger and wished this person no well, after all, I was justified.

Then it occurred to me, I have not had any fall out or reprecussions from the publicity and reams of diatibe about me on the other person’s blog which has been going on for almost a year.

Maybe nobody reads it

It hasn’t effected me personally, except maybe make me a little more notorious or for those who believe everything they read, give them a skewed opinion of this character Ichabod.

Besides, with a handle like Ichabod, you can’t expect an angel, can you.

If someone were ever to confront me with the accusations,  all I have to say is prove it

Makes it easy.

While this individual is appearing ridiculous for most people possessing common sense, I started smiling to myself.

I started responding to the comments with humor, as if I didn’t care, and I no longer do.

Meanwhile my angst at being mis-portrayed to the world is gone.

I do not know if I feel pity for this individual or not.  I know there is no rationale there, just hate.

For me, it doesn’t matter anymore.

 

 

Beyond the Hell of Earth

tigercity wrote:

Don’t you find it imbalanced that we put hours, years into bringing up our children to be good, moral abiding individuals yet one moment of ‘madness’ or a terrible experience could reverse everything that life stood for..?

Maybe this is why we have religion, something to cling to when all else fails. On the other hand, identifying a close friend murdered in such circumstances you’ve described might well destroy any beliefs that there is an order to things. A priest would ask him to forgive and I can see why he couldn’t, even though to you and me (I assume) it’s not the whole far east that is to blame…

Unfortunately, the hell on earth can also reduce whatever faith or religion people may have had to memories of something that never was.

For many, God no longer exists after this and many times hate survives, targeting the source of the Hell experienced, such as the enemy in war.

Words are meaningless when visions replace whatever may be said.  The heart no longer acknowledges that which they believed as being for many years, that which is called God.

For all the beauty and peace on this world, there is the other side.

The realization that the other side is part of life and will always be, at least in what we know life to be and accepting it for what it is helps.

With that knowledge, the part of life that offers beauty and peace opens up to us if we allow it.  I have no definition for it, although I know it is.

Realizing it is there, enlightenment, for the lack of a better description, helps heal the wound and sees us through.

People who have survived hell on earth and discovered peace realize this, others wallow in the misery that is.  Is there a reason for all of this occurring for us all?

We really don’t know.  We can only accept life as it unfolds and make our own heaven or hell.  In my experience, even when we are brought down to our knees and think we no longer have the strength to continue, there is always something inside of us to give us hope, if we allow it.

Some people call this God.

Crazy is not so bad

I was listening to the song I’ve always been crazy.  The lyrics struck a chord.

I’m sitting here with a big fat grin on my face as I recall the good times living on the edge, not knowing or caring about tomorrow or yesterday, enjoying the moment for what it is.

Kick back, sitting in a hole in the wall Catina listening to a bit of blues.

Laughing with my friends and watching the ladies strut about, those were some heady times.

Born free is a good name for the feeling back then not so long ago.  Bikes, buds and Patron straight up.

Life could be a whole lot worse.

The Sentinel

I stepped outside into the night and it swished about five feet above my head gliding to the black tilled soil of my garden.

I was barely able to make out its shape as it stood there, staring at me.  I could see the reflection of the doorway light behind me in its eyes.

We stared at each other for a while until it was time for me to go inside.

The owl was back.  I hadn’t seen it in about a year, and there he stood, just watching and waiting for prey, like a sentinel.

We never know who and what is watching us do we?   Could be anything from a mouse to an owl or any of a number of life forms.

We know people watch us all the time with cameras.

With all this watching going on, is anybody really doing anything?

Maybe that is why our economy is going down the tubes, too many sentinels, not enough workers.

I think I’ll plant a tree

I recently discovered that the country I live in, Canada, is rated the fourth best nation in the world for quality of life.

After being away for almost twenty years, I can see why.

I don’t require an alarm system, bars on my windows, gated community or security guards where I live.

Sure, there is crime here like everywhere else and places that may be unsafe to be, but overall, not as predominant as other countries I have lived in.

It is nice going to sleep at night without a baseball bat next to you for self-protection.  I had to do that only a few years ago.

Civil servants here are actually civil.

The weather can get a little frosty for extended periods and mosquitoes can get annoying, but the scenery is great, there is plenty of water, forests and wildlife, from fish to moose and bear.

There are less people living in this country than in the state of California, which for me is nice as I don’t like densely populated areas.

I am outside quite a bit and after working in the fresh air, I look around me in constant amazement at what this world offers.  I enjoy my garden, even though it hasn’t done that well, but I am learning.  I don’t like using pesticides, weed killers or additives.  I am planting plenty of beans next year and tilling them under next year as they ar a better nutrient for gardens than most fertilizers I am told.

I also plan on buying some calves and a buffalo for meat, as I have enough grazing land to accommodate, and the land is sitting there anyway.

Working with wood outdoors, building, keeps me in reasonable shape and therefore healthy.

As a matter of fact, physical labor, which many shun as they find it abhorrent, is satisfying, seeing something tangible you have created with your own hands.  Something that pushing paper rarely does.

I think I’ll plant a tree.

.

Mentally disturbed individuals

Over the last four or five days I have been getting vicious and obscene comments on this blog by a person who has maliciously libeled me in the past.

The truly sad part about this is I used to like her and it all started from her misinterpreting some communication, and instead of clarifying it or talking about it, she chose to attack.

She has accused me of being indicted with a mob action in Ohio, pulling off real estate scams with the Trump organization, my son and I being involved with a gang, being involved in child porn, all untrue.

If I was truly the individual she claims I am, she would be shaking in her boots because those kind of people stop at nothing to dispel bad publicity where it is not desired. Fortunately for her, comment filtering does the trick for now.

Due to free speech rules prevailing over the blog world, it is extremely difficult to have anything people put up on blogs removed, regardless what it is, even if it is outright fiction.  Especially if there is another country involved.

The nature of the comments are digressing to the point they are threatening to me and my family(who she doesn’t know) and so vile it almost makes you want to puke.  She is also going to other sites I comment on and leaving a trail of excrement behind her.

This is not the stuff a normal human being writes, but a person suffering from a mental disease or psychosis.

I have tried reasoning with this individual in the past and it won’t work.  I offered to remove anything about her if she would remove the libel.

The problem is, I wrote the truth and backed it up with actual facts from newspaper articles I had discovered from the past through the same search engine which hosts her blog.  I only did this after she had written a few slanderous posts about me.   Freedom of speech can go two ways.

She doesn’t realize, most people don’t like reading this garbage, on her blog or mine.

The simplest way of dealing with this is to filter my comments as I do not like this kind of language or thought process to infect this blog.  I do not want to have to do this, but she doesn’t care whether children or those with a low threshold for this kind of stuff reads this material.

This goes way beyond a four letter adjective we are all familiar with.

If the filter does not work, I will be forced to moderate comments.

He left a blank endorsed check in his father’s coffin

His father joked he may need it to help pay the way.

Lying beside the corpse which used to be a man was a paper giving someone or something access to money, legally.

The son worried about it until well past the time the coffin was lowered into the ground.

The check was never cashed

Aliens Welcome Here

Rumi said it best…

Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving.
It doesn’t matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow
a thousand times
Come, yet again, come, come

I am a stripper

i don’t dance around a pole
i have no audience
i strip garbage
from my soul

stuff like
ignorance
piles of
idiosyncrasies
and foibles

while I clean the
house of mind
i see a glow
radiating peace
love and contentment

it is within me
not in the sky
not the moon, sun
or the stars

i have it
just didn’t know it
for i hid it
so many years ago

people helped me hide
me from myself
as they taught me
the meaning of life

they were misled
and
turned me away
from what i possessed

for i wish
the rest of the world
to know
they have one too

What if a big magnet hovered over Wall Street and wiped out all the data?

That is probably what is needed in this world to set a new course, a new direction, change.

Derivatives, futures records, commodities records, transactions, everything would be gone.  Worthless.  It is going that way anyway, why prolong the inevitable?

People would have to get to know one another again and formulate strategies on how to live, without the influence of the numbers piling up in the garbage cans that Wall Street produces.

Is there a law against flying around with huge magnets?  It won’t hurt people physically or mentally and may be good for them, like the claims those  hawkers make on the infomercials for magnetic bracelets.

They’ll probably rush a law through Congress making it illegal to fly around with powerful magnets with the mandatory 1,000 pages of ear marks and expenditures after reading this post

Hate defies reason

Ever meet someone who hates?  Really hates, for no reason?

The kind of people who start up clubs like the Ku Klux Klan and White Supremacists.  The religious fundamentalists who deem the rest uf us unchosen people as fodder for Hell’s furnace.

If you speak to them awhile, you realize they are infected with some kind of disease as rational goes out the window.

As a matter of fact, I find people like this uncomfortable to be around, so I wish they go in a hole somewhere and hide.

You can never negotiate or reason with a hate monger.  I have had personal experiences with them of late.

Their brains get clogged up with the hate juice and it prevents a proper line of thought, so they start sounding stupid, in effect ruining their own cause.

Dumb, isn’t it?

Where would religion be if they discovered civilization on another planet?

It would be a little naive of us thinking we may be the only intelligent life existing in this universe.

If they ever discovered a civilized society or them us, what would the people who believe the 66 books in the bible as the word of God do?   What would the Muslims do?

The fundamentalists would probably deny the existence of  extraterrestrial  life, even if it stood in front of them staring them in the face.

The middle eastern based religions such as Christianity and others were not even aware of the Americas and what was going on over there when they wrote the scriptures.  How would they ever think about what was in the universe?

It is something to think about.

If an alien and its spaceship landed on planet earth….

….what would the countries do?

The alien wouldn’t have a passport.  If it did, the border patrols of any country would not recognize it or the place the alien came from.

They would have to imprison the alien for being illegal.  That would be the world’s  first true illegal alien.

The religious people would have a fit, as God did not write about aliens in his book, the bible, so the religious people would deduce that aliens were something concocted by the devil himself.

Being that as it may, an alien would be best served not landing in the United States, as the CIA would want to get its hands on the space ship and have its medical division dissect the alien to see what it is made of.

There would be a big debate in Congress over this, as the alien is tested for humanness.   After all, it isn’t a human so it doesn’t have any rights under the Constitution.  Even if the alien is far more intelligent or compassionate than we are, it won’t count as it is different.  It comes from out there somewhere.

This is an illustration of how screwed up we mortals are.  Chances are an alien would never get to land, as the military would have it locked in its sights and it would be destroyed if possible.  After all why take a chance?  The alien may be bringing in a pandemic, who’s to know?

We aren’t ready for the little green men yet, we aren’t civilized enough.

Germany wants America to remove it’s nukes from German soil.

The new coalition government in Germany no longer wants to have US nuclear weapons on its land… source thelocal.de.

It is estimated there are twenty or more US nuclear warheads on German ground, although the US isn’t telling.

I don’t blame the Germans.

Anyone living close to nukes is vulnerable, for if there ever is another war, the aggressors will try to wipe out nuclear facilities or warheads first so they can’t be used for defense. .

Who needs that?

Idiot!

I see and hear that word a lot lately.  Seems like someone is always referring to somebody else as idiot, not that the referer is smarter or better educated than the person who he or she is calling an idiot, they just think they are superior.

I recently read an article linking the common herpes virus, the type that is responsible for cold sores, with Alzheimer’s disease.

Apparently, over ninety percent of Alzheimer’s sufferers also had this type of herpes.

The belief is that symptoms of Alzheimer’s could set in long before is commonly thought.

That could also make a difference in life, not only for the sufferer, but those around him or her.

When a person is looking healthy and the facial expressions are that of a normal person, one automatically assumes the person to possess all their faculties and be reasonably intelligent.

But they may not be and it is not their fault.

No one will attempt to understand it either until it is too late.

Some don’t care to understand.

That is the irony of life.

Idiots.

reflections on a sunday morning and skeletons

I have been thinking about life and human behavior this morning.  How we manage to get along or not in this world.

I, like everyone else who is old enough, journey through existence and stray once in a while, from what our core values may be, or at least what we would like them to be.

Usually there is something that happens in our lives we link directly to our straying and we fault our own behavior as the cause, the skeleton we hide in the closet of our existence.

We deal with those as best we can.  Hopefully we have learned from it and in doing so developed safeguards to prevent recurrences of other skeletons being created.

We and others pay the price one way or the other.  The old adage, what comes around goes around, appears to have some truth to it.

You wonder, when someone is going through the process of making skeletons and you are effected, what do you do?

Do you fight back or let the adage do it for you?

I personally don’t like turmoil in my life, I have had enough of that.  Some thrive on turmoil regardless of the consequences.

For me revenge or winning has never been “sweet”.  I take no pleasure from taking on a battle regardless whether it is through words or on a physical level, even if I win, for I am very aware, when I win, someone loses.

We can justify it in our minds by thinking they may deserve it, but I have lived long enough to understand that it never effects only one person, but others whose lives touch theirs as well, including those who are close to me while a battle is brewing.

For me I am inclined to let go, unless someone’s physical or mental state of being is in danger of being seriously harmed or worse.

Life is never that simple, is it?

If you could travel back in time to observe and hear events, where and when would you go?

There are a number of times I would like to witness.

I would like to see the faces of the first explorers to the new world and the faces of the natives when they first noticed each other.

I would like to see how they built the pyramids.

I would like to see how Rome looked and worked before it digressed.

I would like to have watched the great artists at work and the Taj Mahal being built.  What it was like in Mexico City before the Europeans ever showed up.

Then the Mayan civilization.

There are so many periods in history which are of interest on so many levels.

What was it really like three thousand years ago in the Americas and the East?

There is a mystique to it as there is little information.  Did Atlantis exist?

What time and place would you like to see?

If the economy is getting better, why…

….is container traffic is down 20 percent to 30 percent at U.S. Pacific ports according to  analysts . Last week, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the largest container ports in the United States, reported the lowest September import figures since 2000…..source signonsandiego.com.

Why are the two major rail carriers reporting revenue down over 25%?

When the economy is good, transportation is a key indicator of commodities and goods  being bought and sold, not stocks.

When there is no one else to blame, God and Lucifer come in handy.

Dammit, if it weren’t for those two incestuous ungrateful people living in the Garden of Eden, we would all be perfect and have perfect lives.

They screwed up.  It is all their fault.  They warped my DNA.

Not really.  It is really God’s fault, because God could have willed them to compliance.

Some believe the snake, the devil in disguise, made them “sinners”.

God invented Satan too and is the snake’s boss.

As far as me being forgiven is concerned God has no choice, it was out of my hands since day one.  God does have a choice of course, but maybe I didn’t.

It is all God’s fault.

God supposedly killed his own Son to atone for his own mistakes and give us a way out.

When we see the people suffering on this world, it is God’s will.

When one country pulverizes another, that’s God’s fault.

When you get drunk and kill someone with a car, that’s not your fault.

Satan made you do it, maybe it was God?

When we get lucky or something puts a smile on our face, God did it as God was feeling good that day.

When a tidal wave approaches land and consequently destroys life, God did that too as God got up on the wrong side of bed that morning.  Maybe Lucifer talked God into it as hell had vacancies and Satan needed more souls..

Poor God.

He sure is taking a lot heat for the actions and attitudes of us mortals.

We are not responsible?

I am here

What is wrong with a little self faith?

We know us the best don’t we?   We have the ability to mold our thoughts and behaviors if we put our minds to it.  If we desire it enough.

We have imagination, inspiration, creativity.  We can think out of the box if we let ourselves.

We can choose compassion and love over the other.  That is our choice.

We can learn self control.

We can be responsible or we can be the other.

We can choose to be honest or we can choose the other.

We don’t have to be educated or wealthy to understand this.

We can do this to be better people, if we desire.

We have brains with which to accomplish these things.  We can form our own attitudes or allow others to form them for us.

We can take control of I.

I can do all this.

The world turns, and as long as I am alive, I have control over me.

What will I allow myself to do?  What can I learn?  What can I do?  Who will I allow in my life?  Who not?

Who will I love?  Who will I not love?

What will I love?  What will I not love?

I can’t change you, why should I?

It is all about choice isn’t it?

A choice for me while I am here.

People love being lied to, it makes them feel comfortable

“You’re going to a better place when you leave this world”

“The economy is improving”

“We know best”

“We are the greatest”

“I love you”

“They love us”

“We are the true faith”

“We will ‘Change’”

“Trust me”

“We know better”

“All men are created equal”

“Pursuit of happiness”

“Science doesn’t lie”

“Nuclear weapons and the death penalty are deterrents”

“Faith doesn’t lie”

“No one is perfect”

The last line is the biggest lie. I am perfectly human

“Hell hath no fury”

Most people are scared to die.  Scared to look at themselves in the mirror and see who they truly are.

We need the crutch of heaven, salvation, stuff to reaffirm our beliefs in ourselves.

It’s a nice feeling thinking we belong to the superior organization, the one that God loves, the rest of us being fodder for the gates of hell.

This mechanism preaches love and condones and practices hate.  Muslim extremists, Christian judgment and Armageddon, Jewish sense of salvation by divine birth, and so many others.

They all smile in smug satisfaction and look down upon their fellows, “Hey we are better than you.  We love you so we’ll let you join, just follow us into hell”

When criticized for their actions or unwillingness to recognize the flaws in the printed words they so believe in, they get angry, sometimes downright hostile.

“How dare you question God?” they scream at me.

“What makes you think those words came from God?” I ask, “Just because man told you?  Maybe because someone had the audacity to write that lie in a book, the lie that God inspired or wrote it?”

While they recoil in disgust at the questioning, they will think of ways to lash back.

Do everything except love and not judge, which they are supposedly taught.  They are white with fury, so they kill in the name of God, and it doesn’t matter which side they are on, each side is killing or depriving the other in the name of God.

Hell hath no fury.

You have no choice to who or where you are born

And people will hold that against you for as long as you live.

Hated and feared for the simple act of being alive.

That is sick and this world is sick for the most part.

Sick in the head.

Dead men tell no tales

Except those who may have left a written word or two behind or created a piece of art which may leave one to formulating an opinion of a message, dead men are comparable to the silence we do not hear.

Many people speak for those who no longer live, advising and interpreting what a person of note may have thought about one thing or another.

Maybe the dead man’s views better be left alone, in case it does not reflect what his true thoughts were whilst he was alive.

’tis the e’en before hallow

a gloved hand grasped the reigns
he threw himself on his beast’s back
the black stallion reared in fury
of forced servitude
to this aberration of man
without a head

they search
for the lonely little figure
of a man with a head
Ichabod

the spawn from
hell
knows Ichabod’s haunts
as they search high and low
in the endless maze of Ichabod’s
mind

they hear the chilling laughter
of the one who sent them
on this endless game

they can’t find Ichabod
for he is one and the same
as the headless rider
holding the reins.

Don’t ask, don’t tell….women soldiers

I wonder if “don’t ask, don’t tell” applies to female soldiers who have children?

“Are you a mother?”

Yes.

“How many children do you have?”

“Three”

“How old are they?”

“Seven, three and one”

“Why are you here?”

“I am fighting for our country!”

“What about your children.”

“That is the price we are willing to pay”

“Good girl!”

The Man with the Pencil

I had to laugh at one of his cartoons.

Who’s got the keys to the rocket? Wait, I though it was totaled!”

He calls himself ottobiography and he is a very creative individual with a sense of humor.

“Let us pray”….

…the man at the podium gestures with his hands and everyone bows their heads, except for me.

God, I am not going to be part of this.

“Lord we are gathered here.”

So far he didn’t screw up, we are here.

“To ask your blessings and success for our new addition.”

Not me, it is way too expensive and for what purpose?  God, I ain’t asking for this.

“Please provide the money needed by our two pastors to perform missionary work in France.”

They can pay for their own trip.  Get a job.

“Mary Jo is suffering, please heal her!”

Mary Jo is 95 years old.  She doesn’t need healing.  It is her time.

“Let us prevail in our war on terrorism in far off lands”

Yeah, what about “collateral damage,  What about the innocent?

“It would be nice if our team won this weekend for a change!”

As if God didn’t have more important issues.

“Amen”

Wow.

Hormones and Religion do not mix

Religious dogma is the denying of who and what we are.

A woman brought her dog yesterday to be mated with our stud.  She brought her young daughters with her, they were around eight and ten years of age.

While my wife was talking to her, she motioned to my wife not to mention in front of the girls what the dogs were doing.  It was sex and the woman did not want her daughters to know the purpose of the visit.  On top of this, this prude screwed us out of the fee by not returning to pay.

No wonder there are so many problems in this world, I thought to myself.  Just  plain ignorance.

I live in a bible belt of sorts.  There isn’t even a decent bar in these parts.

Lots of pregnant teenagers though and from what I see there are enough kids drinking and smoking pot.

I used to participate in a parent’s advisory council in an elementary school.  A group of us thought it would be beneficial to offer a family life program, which includes sex education.

I did my due diligence and checked it out.  In Sweden, where sex is wide open as compared to North America at the time, and children are educated about sex, the teen age pregnancy rate was just a fraction of ours, a religious based education system which was not far removed from compulsory prayer.

Much of religious dogma is based on deny.  Deny knowledge, self or pleasure.

I do not think God put us here or created life to deny us everything that was created.

If there is a Satan, I think Satan created religion.

The Wait

Much of life relies on patience.  When I used to be in sales I spent more time in waiting rooms than I care to remember.

We are always waiting for something, and while we wait, all kinds of stuff floats in our minds.

We may be waiting for a job offer, an interview, money to come in, rain to stop, rain to start, some sun, warm weather, cool weather, or for the tornado or blizzard watch to be canceled.

There is an earthquake which is a different kind of wait.

While you are swaying with the ground the wait seems for ever till it ends.  Even though they are usually short.  In your mind you know another one is coming, the aftershock or the main shaker, you just don’t know which and you don’t know when.

Yesterday I was stuck waiting for news of a newborn to arrive.

I found out at four in the afternoon my daughter was in labor and had been for fourteen hours.  I was waiting for her to call me as her doctor’s appointment was yesterday, she went into labor instead.

So between four and ten or so, I waited.  I was worried.  Is everything all right?  That’s a long time for labor isn’t it?  Are there real doctors where she is or are they quacks?

They better not screw up or they’re going to be seeing one mighty angry old man.

It turned out all right and prompted this post.

I reminded myself how excruciating waiting can sometimes be.

Eight pounds seven ounces and twenty inches long

And over 1,650 miles away.

Ichabod’s first grand child, a little she!

Welcome to this big old world young lady!

May the leprechauns dance, the fairies laugh, the moon smile and the stars dazzle in your presence.

This old man is happy to hear you made it safe and sound and your mommy is delighted to have you next to her for a change.

This little planet earth was just made a better place by you being here.

Sleep well little one and may your dreams be happy ones.

How can we convince the masses when the weather isn’t cooperating?

New York, Los Angeles, the Netherlands and Island nations are all waiting for the seas to rise.

Wall Street is waiting for the arctic to finally melt enough to free the North West passage.

I am waiting for some nice weather myself.

There is a new poll released that illustrates that belief in Global warming is ebbing.

Why?

Winters appear to be getting longer and colder in many places. For every melt they find, they don’t see where it is freezing elsewhere.

It is hard to dispute the last few years where I live and warming is not it.

That is scientific. The weather bureau where I live said average summer temperatures were more than three degrees below normal, and the year before was not all that great either. Fourth coldest and longest winter on record last year.

That is proof too, is it not?

Silence is Golden

from bouzouki words that make me smile

We all have our stories, made up or true and the way they are told, how I bring it to you,
Is how it makes sense, how it connects, how I remember what happens next.
This story flows without any script, my tongue is tied,and I have tripped
Over rocks in my path, over thoughts that intrude,
My story is simple, or complex as you.
I believe its a fantasy, maybe reality, could be a parable, a moralistic fable, I should have shut up long ago, but the telling is fascinating, and slowly grows, and no one knows how straight it is
the twists and turns, the fate of it.
But one thing this story has that we can see, is the rise and fall of humanity, the lives that died those that tried, the failures, known, and those that we thought had out grown all this, yet drawn into a lover’s kiss, destroyed his kingdom, laid waste to his land, and a lizard rose to take command. The cockroach fought to keep his place, the queen of ants continued apace.
And where was I while watching this thing?
Remembering silence is golden.

The Bard

He focused on the children
standing before him
eyes alight
in anticipation
of his words

the mind searched
for something
to fit the mood
to not disappoint
eager listeners

he looked on the horizon
spotted a falling star
he peered at his tiny audience
his lips curved into a smile
he had his hook

have you ever see a falling star
asked he
they looked at him
their noggins turning to and fro

let me tell you
of one
I just seen

Compensation Czar

The news hit yesterday.

The compensation czar issued a dictate, reducing compensation to the bailed out banking and manufacturing crowd.

It is understandable when a firm is bailed out or suffering, there have to be sacrifices made, and in the case of these firms, they would not exist today without the feds.

I wonder how this will play out?

Will the newly humbled employees, those who can’t get a better job elsewhere, force pay cuts all the way down the line, to part-time tellers who are scraping by take less?

This is the first real indication other than the defaults, employment and foreclosures that there is a serious problem in America.

This is no longer “capitalism”, but almost a communist style of operation.

It illustrates that there is no pure form of any economic model that works, but a mix is what will prevail.  Such as which other countries have adopted.

We step into the future as generations in times past, not knowing what lay ahead.

I asked God for an ID

They keep telling me that God speaks to us and one day I heard this voice.

“Ichabod!”

“What?”  I turned around and couldn’t see anything.

“I am the Lord”

“Yessir!”  It was a male voice.  I replied in my ever so humble tone.

“I want you to go down to Los Angeles and take it for yourself.”

“I can’t do that!”

“Yes you can, I’m with you!”

“OK, but why?”

“You are one of my Chosen people.  I am giving you Los Angeles.”

“How do I know if you aren’t Lucifer tempting me?  You know all promises and when the big event is about to happen, you laugh and the big trap door in the ground opens up?”

“I am not Satan!”

“How do I know that?  Do you have a picture ID?”

“How dare you ask me, the LORD, for paltry human identification!”

“Homeland Security says all aliens must have an ID, and you are an alien right?”

“I’m getting angry!”

“I would be too if Satan stole your ID and is convincing people he was you.”

“Really?”

“Yes really.  There is a lot of garbage in this world.  You wouldn’t expect me to just take your word for it without making sure would you?”

“Now that is wise.  Beelzebub is extremely crafty!”

“ID please,” I smiled.

Does God really need a marketing organization?

You would think that the entity that is deemed to be the cause of life and the universe would not need to have us mere imperfect mortals do the public relations work, would you?

The people who publicly work on God’s behalf claim many things and have a carrot hanging in front of our collective noses in the form of heaven and a big stick in the form of hell.

With so many different sects claiming to know God’s wishes and plan, I wonder which one actually knows what God’s true wishes are?

Now the Pope is offering a hand to the poor Anglicans who feel betrayed by their church leaders, to the extent of  allowing their married priests to stay as priests, even though the RC priests aren’t allowed any fun on this world.

If I were an RC priest, I would be pissed.  This is outright discrimination and the Anglican married priests will be pissed as well as they won’t be considered as holy as the celibate reverends who call themselves father, but who have never spawned any children, or that is what is advertised.

What does God think about all of this maneuvering?

I don’t hear God’s name mentioned anywhere in all of this.

Maybe they are scared to know what the answer may be.  They probably haven’t ever communicated with God, so they really don’t know.

After all God designed DNA, genetics, atoms, quantum physics, brains and sex.

We only discovered them.

God really doesn’t need us to tell us anything.

Sinking Wall Street in the Atlantic

After reading about all the games, crimes, illusions, too big to fail nonsense and being targeted as the nucleus of the Great Depression, the Great Recession and corrections throughout recent history, I have a solution.

Throw a rope around Wall Street and other similar places, tow them out to the middle of the Atlantic and sink them.

Without “speculation”, Ponzi schemes, derivatives, financial instruments,  “futures”, commodity speculation, insider trading, IPOs to nowhere, government funded bonuses and bail outs, maybe currencies will stabilize and people can get back to the business of living and have a little more control over their own lives.

A few thousand years from now people will talk about the legendary Wall Street under the sea, much like they do about the lost continent called Atlantis.

Maybe global warming will do it for us?

The After Life

According to many our souls live on.  Some do not believe there is an after life.

We may be reincarnated, be assigned to purgatory, go to heaven or hell or become ghosts or nothing.

The great mystery of life is that we don’t know.

I had an out of body experience one time, many of us do.  I saw myself laying there and floated above myself, observing the goings on with an impartial frame of mind.

Whether that was a dream, reality, some chemical being released into my brain to overcome an injury, I do not know.

I suppose these types of memories do not help us determine what may be.

If our souls survive, which is a matter of speculation for no one truly knows, there are endless possibilities.  Some of them are definitely not desirable.

I do not think I would want to be reincarnated to live as a Jew in Germany in 1941 or to become a victim of some sado masochist serial killer.  There are many horrible lives on this planet.

People may believe what they want, but belief does not necessarily make it so, good bad or indifferent.

Absolute truth, perfection and now do not exist, at least within the framework of our lives.

Most of us would agree that good and evil in respect to human behavior does exist.  If good and evil exists, why?

Divine Right of Kings

I wish to thank bouzouki for the following;

There is a part of me that cannot understand the lack of compassion or care toward others. I do not understand the childish behavior of claiming something to be “mine” when there is another with an obvious need for it.

Then I think of greed and the divine right of kings, the arrogance that comes with power and i know that deep within those people, there is something lacking, a fear that they hide by claiming what they do not have a right to claim.

In this world, there are times a man must go to battle

This is the real world.

Many of us love peace, but the reality of life is that there are those who have no respect for others.

“Turn the other cheek” is appropriate in certain situations.  When another person’s cheek is involved, that is another reality altogether.

I was at a wedding years ago with my first wife.  I am not a dancer, she loved to dance.

I sat on the sidelines enjoying some conversation and she was on the floor having a good time.  I glanced up and saw her pulling away from this guy who had one paw on her ass and he was trying for a kiss.

I could see it was a struggle.  Thought no longer worked in my being, instinct did.  My wife was being mistreated.

I flipped over the table and had my hands around his throat in a blink of an eye, smashing him up against the wall.

I believe that there are times this is called for.

People of peace, such as myself, don’t like any of this.  On the other hand, I didn’t cause this either.

It takes a wise man to determine when action is called for and when to ignore it.  Sometimes instinct takes over as there is no time to argue pros and cons in your own mind.  In those times, you trust your instinct did the right thing, if not, so be it.

What if you went to Heaven and saw Hitler, Stalin and Saddam there?

I don’t know if the religious of this world would be prepared for that.

How many would want to go if this scenario is what awaits?

After all, it isn’t people who live on this planet who are doing the choosing, are they?

That is if Heaven exists.

You can never tell.  It is said Judas, another person people love to hate, was only following orders.

Something to think about.

www.godhatesfags.com …. an abomination

I went to the site after reading an article in signonsandiego.com.

They bring their children into the fold of the Westboro Baptist Church and brainwash them into their dogma, their interpretation of the Old Testament of the Bible, which is filled with the sickness of mankind in respect to supplying fodder for self righteous hatred.

They claim to be Christian, but Jesus was emphatic about “not Judging”.

I see the seeds forming, the same seeds that Adolf Hitler and his right hand propaganda man Paul Joseph Goebbels planted and harvested a little more than a lifetime ago.

Do they ever ask themselves, if God hated Jews and Gays so much, why did God create them?  If God created them, who is man to destroy that which God created?

Joy

the joy of soul
peace of mind
laughter of being
is always
here

all it takes
is to let it fly
as it needs
to be free

too often we tie
the lightness
that is
to earth bound
shackles

a place laughter
need not be

thank you miss bliss
for showing us
that silliness
is key
to setting
laughter free

A comment I wrote to one of miss bliss’s wondrous posts.  My little mind liked what I wrote, so I thought I would post it here as well

Ichabod’s New Reality Show

I figured it was about time to prepare for my upcoming retirement  and I needed some coin, so I figured a reality show would be in order to make up for money losing time on earth.

I called the people at the Reality Show Network about getting me on.

“What’s so special about you?”  they asked.

Good question I thought, “Nothing really, but I was thinking of launching a balloon and having the kids in it instead of hiding upstairs.”

“That’s been done.  If that’s all you got to offer, forget it.”

My mind was racing furiously.  What could I say to get my retirement nest egg secured?

“Tell you what.  Film me while I go up North and find Santa and his Reindeer.”

“Santa doesn’t exist!  You’re getting stupid.”

He was right, I was getting stupid.

“How about you film me working at my job.”

“What do you do?”

“I deliver dead bodies to funeral homes.”

“What’s so interesting about that?”

“I talk to the stiffs.”

“Really, do they answer?”  I heard them giggling.

“Yeah, they do.”

“OK. that sounds interesting.”

The Actor

On Saturday I read an interesting article about former Soviet bloc countries releasing the contents of security files on citizens during the Communist rule.

One man opened his file to discover that his best friend, a man he had known most of his life, betrayed him and informed the authorities on everything he did over the years.

Confidence betrayed.

I can’t help but think the “best” friend must have been a hell of a good actor.  To pretend to be a friend, share time and experiences and at the same time stick a knife in the back of the man who trusts you.

There is a lot of that going on.

There are many actors and actresses in this world.  You never know which role they are playing, they are that good.

Where do you fit in?

Cold heart syndrome

We all make mistakes

There isn’t anyone out there who hasn’t erred, on an exam, at work, with relationships, with life.

Every time I write a post I make a few mistakes.  In my life, I made tons of them, too many to list, intentional and unintentional mistakes.

I have learned from them, I think.

I have determined what kind of person I want to be.  No, I will never make the “grade” in my own mind, but the objective for me is to keep trying and that I do.

One aspect of life that overcomes many of us is the “cold heart syndrome”.

It is easy to get callous to other peoples’ needs.

Jesus once predicted that “hearts will waxeth cold” near the end, and every time this coldness becomes predominant, there is a major problem on this planet.  Like a war or genocide or masses of people who have, ignoring those who don’t have, and justifying it to themselves that it is ok to ignore them.

We would rather judge everyone on their shortcomings, the supermarket news stands are full of this garbage, as if the writers of the stories or the publishers are wearing halos.

I know there are some things I could not do.  For example I couldn’t kick a family out of their home on the street.  If foreclosure is imminent, I would try to make sure they had a place to live before asking them to vacate the premises.  Some of these homeowners are tapped out, that’s why they are losing their homes.

I couldn’t let people go hungry if it is in my power to feed them.  Or allow them to fall into the depths of despair, without hope, when all they need is a little hope.

Unfortunately there are many who do not feel the way I do about these things.  I think they are making a big mistake, but it is their lives.

Is there hope for the future with the cold heart syndrome reaching epidemic levels.  I like to think so, as there are plenty of good people on this planet.

I am just a little tired of always hearing about the other kind of people, the cold hearted ones or the ones with no heart at all.

“My Demon can kick your Demon’s Ass”

A quote by Bliss Bait.

We like inventing demons to kind of protect us, like this one.  Problem is he was all talk and no walk.  So we called in this demon to kick the one on top out….

This demon didn’t have what it takes, so we called the demon consulting firm and the adviser below….

…… recommended we hire the little girl below to get rid of the other demons

She did a fantastic job, destroying the first two demons and the adviser.  The problem with the little girl is she was worse than the other demons, now we have to hire an exorcist.  Maybe after payday

My Son’s Friend

“He’s about seven feet tall Dad and built like a brick shit house!”

“I guess he had plenty of time to work out in jail,” I responded.

“Yeah, he was nineteen and is now twenty two, that’s a long time Dad,”  my son said.

“I know, too long.”

Ben was a good kid when I knew him.  He stayed in my home more than once.  Always respectful and was a great friend to my kids.

He only had one tiny problem.

He liked marijuana.

“Tell Ben I’m glad he’s out.  Wish him luck!”

I meant it.

Two and one half years of a person’s life is too long for weed.  The stuff is all over, in just about every country.  Presidents have smoked the stuff and most people have at least tried it.

Yeah, it kills people, mainly on the distribution end.

This “war” on drugs is insane.  If they are going to ban anything, try alcohol.  Oh, I forgot, they tried it and it didn’t work either.

You can’t legislate what people deem to be harmless and relaxing.

I don’t smoke the stuff, but I am not going to try to stop someone from smoking it either if he or she is an adult.  Kids are another story, but I am not suggesting that kids take drugs, although many experts feed Ritalin to kids like candy mints.

Something wrong with this picture isn’t there?

We are not good enough to live forever as humans…

Ever since our ancestors committed the sin of whatever it was they did wrong, everyone one of us is dealt with the same fate, the end.

On the other hand, it may not have been our ancestors, but the ancestors of the people living in the Middle East, which means my ancestors may be entirely innocent of any wrongdoing.

Being that as it may, if we aren’t going to be around here forever, what makes anyone think they are going to last afterward forever?

Does anyone really want to?

Holy is an Evil word

As I only arrived on earth within the last century, I will use Israel and some of its neighbors to illustrate my point, as we are all familiar with religious extremists on both sides of the fence.

Holy is oft used to discribe divinity.

To prove their point, people quite often get killed on both sides of the religious fence to prove to God how “faithful” they are, even though one of the commandments that both sides admit God issued does not take kindly to the killing part of life.

To kill a person, usually a bullet or blade is used, and lately bombs have been taking the spotlight.

They all cause unnatural holes to perforate their victims, causing injury or death.

That is why I think “Holy” is an evil word.

The gargoyle, the protector

In thinking about the human need to facilitate the unknowing with imagery, I happened to come across this picture  of a gargoyle.

The gargoyle was basically a decorative water-spout used for accommodating runoff from the roofs of buildings and evolved to something that was said to ward off evil spirits and protect the buildings.

What I find perplexing about the gargoyle, is that its image resembles that which many would consider demon.

Funny how we humans like to play both sides of the fence when it comes to protecting oneself.

I wonder if this is what they refer to as hypocrisy.

Where religion and science meet

It is nice “knowing” and thinking we understand the realities that is, such as quantum physics.

The mysteries of the universe are slowly unfolding and giving birth to theories that were the fiction of the “Twilight Zone” and “Star Wars” years ago.

I can see people getting “hooked” on the possibilities, and we pursue it, sometimes finding something of use on the way, like using frequencies to send images, voice and data from one place to another through space.

We start looking at science as if it were a new “religion” with the same fanatical fervor the extremists on so many religious sides of the fence in the world display, from Zionists, Muslims, Christians and such.

It’s nice to know that mankind has been able to produce combatants to bacteria and viruses today which relegates certain diseases such as polio to a rarity.

So it goes, putting people in outer space, creating nuclear bombs and using similar technology to provide electricity and power aircraft carriers and submarines, not to mention genetic engineering to maximize food productivity on this planet.

Lately scientists have been able to have man communicate with machine through thought and have been able to detect which number may be floating around in a person’s mind.

It is no wonder people become fanatics on science.

The bottom line.

What good does any of this do when you couldn’t make your mortgage payments and are out on the streets with no wherewith all to eat?

Or some poor slob who happens to live in Gaza and who is not religious stuck between warring religious extremists, each faction fighting for God, something science has not been able to discover yet, so God does not exist, but the big bang may.

That is the point where religion and science meet.

The big bang.  Science provides the means, religion provides the motivation and all it takes is someone who is crazy enough to push the red button.

The preceding post illustrates how we are held hostage to the extreme thoughts of this world.

It’s nice being dumb.

Righteous Anger

I received a comment from tigercity to my post Meet the new face of 21st Century Living and his words stand out as the reader can feel his anger and frustration.
He is not alone, I feel it and know others do as well.

the image of the ‘voter’ blinded by the media (newspaper) says it all.. well it doesn’t say it all perhaps.. but he’s got his Christian cross on, he’s saved, he’s safe, he’s inconsiderate of the starving, the bombing, and it’s all been done in the name of democracy, the west is the best right? We’d rather not discuss these things at parties, might lower the tone.. and if we knock off a few infidels who’s going to care eh? Cos we’re right, we’re white, we’re bright… NO… we are f***ing stupid and we let them run off with OUR mandate to rule our countries carte blanche.. there is no environmental policy worth believing, there is no human rights to speak of, there IS poor nations to exploit, oil to extract and money to win… but to win the money you gotta dig and todig you gotta invade and to invade you need DEMOCRACY.

NOT IN MY NAME.. I didn’t vote for YOU

“Mine eyes have seen the Glory of the coming….”

my eyes have almost touched
the source of that
which is

my heart has felt it
my being experienced it

it is not an image
of a caricature
called God or Allah
looking like Moses
in a chariot
or
seated
on a throne

it is not
the son of man
who railed
against the lie

it is not a flag
or
country
which is

it is beyond
all those things
for you and I

the source can be
frightening
for all
who come close

realizing the divinity
of which we near
are beyond
what we
will ever be

it can burn our souls
or give life
as sun and earth
give the gift
to a tree

have no fear
for we shall know
no one
will be deprived

of knowing
the coming
of the glory
in
our
souls

Wall Street dropped the Stars and Stripes and adopted a new Flag

It is no longer appropriate to have Wall Street operate under the fine body of rights the founding fathers determined were good for the overall well being of American citizens.

The big corporations, which are entities like people, except they have no souls, have decided to adopt a new flag they can pledge allegiance to.

They call the flag Jolly Roger as he is a happy camper

Goldman Sachs employees will get bonuses that could buy 22 of these 685 foot warships, valued at one billion each.  That’s just this year

Seeing as most investors look like this

It is easy making the “change”.

“Yes, we can” 

Meet the new face of 21st Century Living

Over 1 Billion don’t have enough to eat

The true face of “Collateral” damage

Wall Street’s real Flag

We the voters

The fallacy of Ms. Jones’ Black Book

Curiosity prompted this post.

With Ms. Jones’ income flirting up near 10,000 and government leaders smiling at the thought they saved the world along with Goldman Sachs employees who are running over to their favorite yacht salesman’s home, I wondered what the real “picture” would be if they hadn’t removed a few Corporations from Ms. Jones’ black book and replaced them with others.

I refer to DOW as Ms. Jones, as she appears to be part of the whore mongering on Wall Street.

After all, if you run a business and your revenue is down, you can’t take the under performers and arbitrarily replace it with another company’s revenue figures, right?

So I went to a trusted source, Wikipedia.com and discovered the following corporations (wealthy Johns)  are no longer listed on Ms. Jones black book.

General Motors, CitiGroup, AIG, Altria and Honeywell are no longer “blue chip” companies worthy of playing with Ms. Jones.

That is five companies “people” trusted with their investment coin, like a church member trusting a “pedophile priest”

If we were to discount Ms’ Jones income by five of the thirty components, the DOW would be running around 8,333, and may not even have reached that figure as in this instant gratification world people would have been dismayed at it taking so long to rise.

Noah’s Ark is being towed by the US Coast Guard

The US Coast Guard apprehended a strange ship made of gopher wood some 190 miles off the coast of California today.

They hailed the ship’s captain with the loud speaker as there was no flag or communications equipment visible on the boat.

However, they saw a number of elephants and hippos sleeping on the deck.

“This is the Coast Guard.  You are entering the territory of the United States of America.  We are coming aboard.”

An old geezer with his family stuck their heads out of a door on the cabin on the deck.

The Coast guard boarded the boat and took the old geezer and his family and hand cuffed them for not having identification.

“Illegal aliens huh?” the coast guard guy said.

Noah replied, “What’s an illegal alien?  Get off my Ark you insolent idiot!  God is not going to like this!”

A voice from below cried out, “They got no life jackets, fire extinguishers and no head either.  This place smells like shit and it’s like a jungle in here, animals all over.”

“Illegally importing exotic animals?  That’ll get you fifteen at least,” the coast guard guy sneered.

Noah replied, “Wait till it starts raining you gutter snipe!”

The Coast Guard guy laughed, “Let’s tow this barge in boys.  The news media will love this one!”

Three years later, Noah is being interviewed in prison, the animals were shipped to the San Diego Zoo, two by two.

“Noah, it has been three years since you were apprehended and all the people of faith have been working hard on your appeal which is scheduled for next week.  What do you have to say about that?”

“Wait till it starts raining!” replied Noah.

The real reason NASA wants to find water on the moon.

When World War Three finally starts up, there will be a frenzy of red buttons being pushed.

The skies above earth will be filled with missiles crisscrossing all over Hell’s half-acre till they find their targets.

It will sound like a super fourth of July, with huge mushroom clouds all over, high winds knocking over trees and buildings with the glow of radiation present everywhere.

It won’t matter who started this little disagreement as most of the perpetrators will be fried anyway.

But the President of the US and a privileged few will be on the moon, with moon water and cognac, looking at the earth from a vantage point wholly unaffected by the carnage happening less than 200,000 miles away.

I wonder how it will feel being the President of only a spaceship full of people when you are used to crowds of thousands cheering or booing you?

If NASA is smart, they will send a couple of females up there so they can restart the human race.

This can only be accomplished if they find water on the moon.  Without it, self preservation is only a dream.

They can’t take it with them

If it is one consolation for those who do not enjoy material possessions or lots of money in this world, it is the fact no one can take it with them when they go.

For example, the $22 Billion or so that Goldman Sachs is about to unleash on all the minions who work for the corporation.

When they die, it won’t do any damn good.

“What have you to say for yourself,”  the voice echoes on judgment day.

“I made a killing during and after the Great Recession of 08,” is the reply.

“Good, let’s see it and we’ll send you to the up elevator,” echoed the voice.

Hands frantically search for a wallet, debit card, super platinum plus card with a million dollar credit line.  Nothing was there.

“I seem to have misplaced my wallet and cards,” replied the financial guru.

“Your body, clothes and wallet are on earth.  That stuff is not allowed here,” the voice replied ominously.

“If you let me go back, I can show you how rich and powerful I truly am.  I am respected.”

“Not here,” replied the voice.

“Who the hell do you think you are? God?”

“Take him down boys,” the voice commanded, “Next!”

If my children were to ask, what is life about?

What would I say?

I have always tried to be honest with my children.  To lie to them would cause two problems.  They would no longer trust me if they discovered the lie and it may steer them in the wrong direction, leading to unnecessary strife in their lives.

Fortunately none of them have asked me what life is about, yet the answer is simple.

“Life is about living,” I would say.

“Dad, that’s not quite what I had in mind!”

“I know, but that is the answer,” would be my response.

“You have been talking about life for years.  What is your conclusion?  Do you believe in God or any of that stuff?”

“I love you guys so I will tell you straight up as to how I see it.  What my life has taught me.”  I can see them now, listening.

“I discovered life is a lot better when you are honest and deal with friends, family and anyone else you may come in contact with, with respect and dignity.  Allow for others to make mistakes, as you will make your own.  Help others when you can.  Be nice to people.  Smile and the world will smile with you.  Don’t seek revenge when wronged, hate can eat at you.”

“When life deals you a bad hand, keep on going, it is only bad for so long.”

“What about God?” they ask.

“God for many is not the same as God is for me.  God is the presence of life.  The conductor of the laws that we know and the ones we do not know of.  It is impossible to know God, yet God is.  I recognize that, many do not.”

“Dad, are you nuts?”

“All the time” 

The disposable generation

I am tired of all the flack we “baby boomers” are taking from other generations.

We sold out, caused a debt that our children will have to pay for the rest of their lives and many “baby boomers” are facing a future that is bleak.

When I was young we looked up to older people for wisdom and guidance.  In those days families looked after their elderly when they could not look after themselves.

It is only lately I have heard of the elderly eating dog food to sustain themselves as it is cheaper to do so.  Many have to leave homes which are paid for, because they can no longer pay the taxes, homeowner’s association fees or utilities.

One fellow wrote he had no compassion for those who did not save wisely and prepare for their retirement years.  Many did, and got wiped out.

Many never had the where with all to save.

He wrote

” My generation has even bigger dreams: to go to planet Mars. I can promise you that my generation can achieve this goal. “

I replied

I hope you see Mars. You cry about your generation having to pay for all of us old folks’ mistakes.

Don’t forget, someone brought you up, paid for your education, food and shelter. Someone protected you when you were too young to protect yourself. Someone gave you the opportunity and the tools in the form of science and technology to dream about Mars.

Unfortunately, they did not teach you anything about life.

The “Dream” they are selling is dung

Government, leaders and educators espoused the adage of “investing” wisely so we can purchase “security” and with that comes “happiness”.

Over the years I have read just about every song and dance that people can imagine, and yes a few have followed that path and made out all right, many have not.

Now we are paying, through the nose.

They sell us the “image” of how it can be.  The image is just that, an illusion.

The only thing I can say to these folk who package and market the dung as “dreams”, shove it, I ain’t buying it no more.

As One

she reached out
to him
he refused
her touch

she could not
understand
for they
were
as one

akin
to
hell
and
heaven
when they
had been
as one

as time
continues
its endless
roll
to
nowhere
she desires
to be
as one

for the child
he with she
create
is now
as one

the souls
that be
as one
are one
with all
as one

soul light

it is not
which we think
not as light
from the sun

it has no home
yet is here
for those
who wish
to share

there are
no words
to describe
light of soul

for those who
have felt
soul light
realize

awareness
surrounds
gentle
and sweet
a balm
for torment
and strife

its power
is soft
and strong

it lifts and carries
soul’s music
from dusk
till dawn

in between
as soul light
rests
it lay
asleep

under soul’s
caress

the pilgrimage

we journey together
all as one
like the locusts
swarming over
the ground

as the swarm moves
here and there
one or two
are left behind
and continue
the pilgrimage
no more

from far away
life sees the hordes
as if a cloud
and one sees
the first
arrive

after
we are done
laying waste
to what was

we wonder
where next
we go
on our
pilgrimage

Let it be

In many places in the world life must feel like a prison with invisible walls.  Even in the “free” democracies people oftentimes feel that way.

Why?

Some groups or individuals seem to allow curiosity to get the better of them, sticking their noses into peoples lives and determining that laws or rules must be implemented to change behavior, as they do not like what their curiosity has shown them.

They do not understand the phrase, mind your own business.

This is an epidemic.

A few generations ago, the average level of education an adult achieved was a grade eight.  Most people had more control over their own lives in respect to decision making and deciding what is good for their families and children than today, where the average education level is much higher.

Why is that?

Maybe we should learn to let it be.

Has the blog’s best days gone by?

With all the social networking sites vying for members and blog sites infiltrating every nook and cranny on the web, is blogging losing it’s sparkle?

There are many fine writers putting time and effort into blogs and a few are unique and outstanding.

Yet so many want to take a stab at writing, like me for example.  As time goes on in this venue, I believe that interest is waning.

A blog is not like a good book, where you can relax and let your mind wander in and out of the pages, mesmerized by an author’s words.  After the last page is turned and read, there are times you feel good, let down or desire more, but it is finished.

There are not many who have the gift of telling a tale that will keep a reader interested from start to completion and rarer is it where you read it more than once as it is so good.

My interest in reading waned some twenty years ago, as I had read enough by that time, almost every book I picked up was almost predictable.

And so it is with blogs.  There is a predictability about them once you get to know the author and what he or she is interested in.

There is only so much a person can write about without being redundant within the range of a few topics.

I never seem to have a problem coming up with something to write, but I too get redundant oftentimes, and I realize I do not have the talent the really good writers have.

Writers are like musicians, singers or artists.  Some stand far above the crowd, their talent inspired.  Many others are good, but not of the caliber worth remembering.  Then there are those who should not be.

I wonder where the blog world will be five years from now?

The Rumble Seat

When I was a kid, about ten years of age, my father went to work looking after a doctor’s farm by the river.

It was more of an estate than a farm. A long driveway lined on both sides with trees providing a natural roof of leaves brought you to the main house, which was over a century old in those days.

Nearby was a log cabin where the doctor’s teenage sons stayed when they were there and off to the side was an older frame house where we lived.

The main house was a delight to walk in. A man’s home with mounted heads and antlers on the walls. A bearskin rug lay on the floor in front of the fireplace and an ancient musket hung on the wall. The doctor’s wife was a kindly soul and we enjoyed being in the kitchen with her as she always managed to have something tasty for us to munch on.

There was a gold fish pond beside the main house and next to it a genuine World War One cannon, which I used to love playing with.

My brother tied a safety pin on a string which was attached to a stick he found and went fishing in the gold fish pond. There were horses and cattle there.  For a while we lived in another era, as my mother had to cook and heat water on a wood stove. I remember having to stack wood my father split.

The job lasted less than a year, but it still stands out in my mind.

The Doctor’s son had an old model A Ford with a rumble seat, which he used to pick me up at school one day.

I remember sitting in the rumble seat on the way home.

It was fantastic

t’is the ides of October

memories of a
fateful day
long ago

a time
I walked
alone
fills my
mind

t’was the death
of night

i felt
hot breath
from flaring nostrils
flowing down
my neck

i dared not turn
for i knew
t’was evil
stood
back of me

frozen i was
fear felt so scared
it ran off
leaving me
alone

i slowly turned
my head

from the corner
of my eye
the demon
from hell
filled moon’s sky

on the steed
mounted he
satan’s knight
a head
without
he be

Death certificates

In order to prove to anyone you are no longer alive you need a death certificate.

An official document stating that you are no longer breathing and your body temperature is comparable to the slab in the morgue.

I wondered about issuing death certificates to people who want to enjoy some of the benefits of life insurance policies before they die.  What’s a couple of years difference make to the corporation and consumer as in life insurance company and policy holder?  Although you probably can not be a direct beneficiary of your own policy, your significant other can.  All he or she needs is for you to be dead.

After all, isn’t breathing or not breathing a minor technicality for life insurance?  It is the certificate that counts.

Meanwhile, there are beautiful island nations which will probably give you a new identity for a fee, so you can spend your money there without worrying about getting caught breathing, as you are “officially” dead.

All that is needed is a government that will provide death certificates based on word of mouth rather than checking.  That shouldn’t be too difficult.

What is he or she thinking?

Ever look at another mortal and wonder what may be going through his or her mind?

Are they at peace, worried about someone or something?

Is the mind filled with plans for the future or is survival of the day important?

Is a love interest occupying his or her thoughts?  Maybe they are depressed about something or someone?

What if they are angry or hate filled and the mind is a powder keg ready to explode?

I look at people and wonder about these things.

Not that it makes a difference, but it helps remind me the other inhabitants of this planet are much like me, with the same thoughts and feelings.

It helps me to understand life a little better and allows for his or her space, as everyone needs space now and then.

The “Death Bond”, Wall Street’s new investment scam.

Years ago, a person or company purchased shares in a corporation as an investment.

The corporation had a track record, when times were good, paid dividends, and the investor felt a tiny sense of security that the corporation will be well managed by people who cared about the corporation’s and subsequently the shareholders’ viability.

No more.

Wall Street is packaging anything it can and marketing it to investors, selling an upside that often doesn’t exist and a downside that has proved to be catastrophic and they continue the flim flam game.

I learned about “Death Bonds” today in theglobandmail.com.

They’re called “death bonds” – or, more formally, life settlement securitizations – a burgeoning class of financial products that have caught the eye of financial innovators at some of Wall Street’s biggest banks, which are eager to find new ways to make money after the popping of the mortgage bubble. The bonds are created by intermediaries that buy up life-insurance policies from policy holders – typically seniors looking to cash out their policies – bundling them together, and selling off small slices to investors. The profit comes when the policy holders die and the investment funds, as the designated beneficiaries, collect the payouts.

Beyond Reason

As I get older the words “beyond reason” becomes more apparent in my mind.

I did it my way all my life, worked hard and tried to play the game.  To what avail?  I think to myself.

People like me were once considered the backbone of the nation, but no more.  The creators, entrepreneurs, gamblers with life.

Risking that which we struggled to gain, employ others, push the line.

The “dream”.  Work hard and it shall come to you.

Bullshit.

As the “golden” years approach, I discover mine is going to appear more like the “toilet paper” years.

Many of the people I had gone to elementary and high school with, some of them did no more than push a broom for a living, are retired, making more on their pensions than they did when working.

It appears to me every time I finally see “green shoots” a coming there is some entity, usually government, that takes it away and gives it to the exec with the suit and tie.

Now the dollar is dropping and I lose more of my coin, for what?

So some paper pusher on Wall Street can go home with a wallet full of cash?  The golden parachutes they receive for not taking a risk?  What do they lose?

The CEO position is a job.  Did they create?

Has anyone on Wall Street done it like Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Alex Bell or Walt Disney?

No.

These guys are the leeches of the world, protected by the oak paneled conference rooms and their government friends.

Winter is coming and it appears that oil is finding an excuse to rip into us again.

There is no honor among thieves, and all I am seeing today are robber barons, with suit and tie and fancy titles.

They will be the end of what could have been and as they bring the system down, they will be as Nero, playing their fiddles while they watch the destruction from their yachts, yawning at the display, not giving a damn.

Beyond reason.

Did we lose something through de-evolution?

Thirty years ago I read an interesting article about a man who lived in South Dakota,  if I remember correctly, who managed to move some heavy stones on his property without the aid of equipment.

Recently I was made aware of the discovery in Jerusalem of massive stones, precision cut, laying underneath existing structures, apparently placed there eons ago.

We are all familiar with the guesswork that is still going on in respect to pyramids and how the ancients were able to move the massive stones and refine them to the tolerances they exhibit.

Was it done by man the way we assume it must have been?

Were they more advanced than we?

There was speculation the man in South Dakota used will to move the stones, the power of the mind.  In the 1900’s there have been some people who have made news with supposedly supernatural powers, such as Edgar Cayce, who was said to have provided instructions how to heal people, at times from great distances.  Apparently the instructions provided cures or relief from whatever his patients suffered from.  There is plenty of documentation from people who went out of their way to discredit Cayce and they walked away perplexed.

Taking into account that people will go out of their way to make something they believe in appear true, there is enough of this stuff out there to make one wonder if we lost something of ourselves during the course of time.

Miss Bliss and I are cashing in on our blogs

We are asking others to cash in too and we’ll all take a trip to some exotic place where the rich and famous do not go.

We thank the WordPress people for making us rich, between this blog and Bliss Bait, we have accumulated enough value in our blogs to go.

Miss Bliss asked me to pick a place, so I thought long and hard.

We need crystal clear brooks where colorful little fish abound, green meadows and a great bartender who can sing, a few hammocks strung between the aging trees and a forest of  lush green on the edge with a mountain set behind.

We’ll require a versatile orchestra to help sway our mood and a comedian and sage or two.

The weather will be balmy night and day.  Cell phones and computers won’t be allowed.

In the forest will be a little pond the locals herald as the fountain of youth.  The sounds of joyous laughter and music will fill the air.

The name of the place

is

Shangrila

Writer’s Block

Writer’s block hit me one day.

I ran out of things to write about.  Brain drain absolute.  I called the 911 hot line at the Writer’s Guild of Somalia.

“I have a problem.”

“That is why we are here, to help writers with problems.  How may I help you.”

“I have writer’s block.  I don’t know how to start a post anymore.  My mind is frozen!”  I was a little shaken up.

“That is very serious,” the voice sounded very compassionate, ” did you take the blockage vaccination?   There is an epidemic of this going on you know, and some people never regain what they lost.  They can never start a story again.”

“No, I didn’t have the vaccination as I didn’t know there is one.  You mean there are others?”

“Yessir, thousands of people suffer from this ailment.”

“What am I going to do?” I asked, all my dreams of a Nobel Prize in Literature flowing down the gigantic sewer hole of life.

“It all depends if it is malignant or benign,”  the voice answered.

“How are we going to find that out?”  this was starting to go way over my head.

“It is very simple, is there a sandy beach nearby?”

“Like a swimming kind of beach?”  I asked.

“Yes”

“Yes there is,” I answered.

“Go to the beach, dig a hole about a foot deep in the sand, then stick your head in it for eight hours.”

“Are you kidding me!”  I am getting a little angry now.

“Ha, ha, ha!”

Click.

“Do you?”

“Do what?” she asked.

“You know,” he replied.

“Know what?” she asked again, starting to suspect something suspicious.

“Well, you know, what other couples do,” he responded, his cheeks burning with embarrassment.

She saw his red cheeks and guessed he wanted a little more than she was prepared to give.

“I do but not with you,” the answer was no nonsense and firm.

He felt totally shamed, his ego destroyed, “I’ll have to ask someone else,” he muttered.

“I think you had better,” she felt better, knocking the weasel from his masculine pedestal.

“Maybe Roxanne will go roller skating with me,” he said as he closed the door behind him.

Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

We demand reason and logic while doing the unreasonable and illogical

I like bouzouki’s comments.  They are a man’s conclusions based on an open and questioning mind combined with a heart of compassion.

When I read them, I surprise myself, as I not only understand his reasoning, I agree with them.  Considering he and I live on the same world but are from different planets, that is a miracle in and of itself.

The following you will not only enjoy, but is food for thought.

Ichabod, watch out, that is one of Chaung Tzu’s contributions to this fantasy. After dreaming he was a butterfly , he woke up, wondering, is he Chaung Tzu dreaming he is a butterfly o r a butterfly dreaming he is chaung tzu. That road is the way, usually explained via metaphor, with the admonition that words can not say it, and those that speak, don’t know, those that know, don’t speak.
i can see the great spiritual men sitting in a room, trading stories, …actually there would be silence… “jesus, let’s have some more wine”, and a barrel of water is transformed. Avatars and Shamans sit with a mixture of beings from all cultures, Listening to musicians that can’t give up their craft, are destined to return and explain a little more. The Bodhisatvas prepare for their return, knowing that they can not stop until every being is sufficiently advanced to understand a part of this and the dynamics of quantum physics is commonplace.
We want our mythology to be true and yet we deny the truth in any other mythology. We demand reason and logic while doing the unreasonable and illogical. As guilty as I am, I know that the story of my life is only one story, full of metaphor, synchronicity, magical moments, stretches of boredom and empty questions, and I will stop maintaining this sack of water at some moment. What happens next is still a mystery.

This site’s estimated worth is $2518.50

Just for the hell of it I checked out this site on Google and there are 86,000 matches.

Lo and behold I discovered an interesting item a few items down on the first page, someone actually placed a value on this site.

Website Outlook is the place.  Although my counters and theirs do not match, it is interesting that this free site which cannot advertise is worth money.

If you desire to purchase it leave a comment

The day the reality of fantasy died

We refer to it as the stuff of fantasy, the impossible.

From the time I was old enough to understand anything, fantasy was fed to my brain.  I remembered sneaking out of bed after midnight on Christmas hoping to see Santa under the tree or at least to catch a glimpse of the sleigh with the reindeer.

Then I discovered he didn’t exist and that the sleigh had about as much reality as Ali Baba’s flying carpet.

Later on Lord Greystoke fueled my imagination as Tarzan and I wondered if it could be possible that a man could be raised by apes and achieve an ape’s strength.

Then the adult fantasies came about, like Noah, Sampson, David and Goliath, Christ walking on water and calming the storm with a wave of his hand.

That fantasy slipped away from the realm of reality in my mind as well.

Now everything seems to have a logical explanation.  We have the means, the scientific expertise, the where with all, to debunk fantasy and myth and erase it from our collective conscience.

For many God no longer exists, the stuff of fantasy.

Yet no one has ever been able to explain to me in a logical manner how we came to be, why we  are here and our purpose.

It may not be important, we are born, procreate and die, like every other life form.

I ask, “Why does my brain work in such a manner that these questions even exist?”  I know I am not the only one.  It is like the questions are there and the answers purposely withheld.

Then I wonder if my time awake is really a dream and the sleep I experience is reality.

The Other Side

There is always the other side isn’t there?

The opinion that is contrary to your own, the faith that does not coincide with yours, the compassion for others which seems to be on a different plane with that of another.

You listen to the other side.  Many times they make sense.

Then you say to yourself, “what if they’re right?  Is it possible I am wrong or misinformed?”

There is much of that in this world these days.  Everything, from economics, psychology, theology to science has more than one conclusion which can be derived from information they offer.

Predictions and statements change from day to day.

So does patience and tolerance, which seem to be getting thin from one mind set to another.

“Idiot!” we cry.

The person who has been called an idiot feels humiliated then rage sets in, “Moron!” is fired back.

They are probably both somewhat accurate in the opinions which led to the name calling.

For some, it matters more that they win than admit they may not be “right”.

In the end, does it really matter if you were right or not?

You’ll only know if you put yourself on the other side.

The Master and the Slave

The Master

Symbol representing wall street

The Slave

Government by the people for the people

Goldman Sachs $22 Billion employee Pot o’ Gold

The USS New York cost $1 Billion

Goldman is aptly named.

Goldman’s total compensation pot is expected to be a record $22bn, delivering average pay and bonuses of more than $700,000 per employee, higher even than the average $661,000 paid out in 2007 – its last record year….source telegraph.co.uk

Someone is making out like a bandit in this made in Wall Street recession.  Goldman is supposedly contemplating donating a paltry $1 Billion to charity to shut up its critics.

Where are they getting the money for such huge pay outs and why are people stupid enough to allow it?

Capitalism is one thing, highway robbery under the guise of respectable investment banking is another, especially from a bank the taxpayer bailed out last year to the tune of $10 Billion.

The problem is, a billion is starting to sound like chicken feed and the way the US dollar is tanking lately, that is probably all it is worth.

crossing the line

i look at the man
up there
i wonder
who gave him
the power

he orchestrated
and conducted
his fellows
to

death’s tune

i look at the man
up there
he sang
life’s tune

the first man caused this

the second gave his life for this

it occurred to me

these men both
used words
one for peace
the
other
to cross the line

words

even though

would you give your love to me
even though
i am slave

would you give your love to me
even though
i have no
control

would you give your love to me
even though
i don’t
know

would you give your love to me
even though
i forget
at times

i love
you so

would you give your love to me
even though
you hold
my soul

is this what we want?

ichabod’s avatar

i saw this picture some time ago and it stays with me in my mind for there are more like this child on this world.

we forget at times, it could be you or i or someone we love in this picture and is not.

we allow those in power to detract our thoughts from the important things in life.

this child is important.

if the child was one of ours

we would sacrifice to provide

it is his luck that he is not

one of ours

what does it say

about us?

he is but a child

who cannot speak

for himself

if he could

what would he say?

who would he hold

to account?

the master or the slave?

Peace is only a word

words are sound waves
that touch our being
we allow words
to penetrate  mind

words are thoughts
of one to another
they hold sway
over actions

of one
to another

peace is a word
most like to hear

peace is a word
many will not
allow
to penetrate
minds

for peace to
sway

those
who will not
accept

it must be
allowed
to penetrate
mind

dance of life

love binds

the others divide

the universe

and life

dances with

love and the

others

when the two

merge

and become

as one

we will

know

harmony ultimate

Nothing

nothing is
not nothing
nothing does
not exist

nothing is
a word for
something
we cannot
describe

the black void
of space
which used to be
nothing

is filled with
a plasma like
something
so every nothing
we express
is a something
we cannot express

the beauty of nothing
is it gives substance
to something

when you offer
someone a penny
for his or her thoughts
and the reply
“nothing” is heard
you know it’s something

The rock and the human

As I float along the translucent dimension of life,  I am becoming aware that so much that I considered important or necessary are not so at all.

In the end, what will my mind tell me or will my emotions take over and make me feel a certain way?

Will I have lived in vain?

What good was my being here accomplished?

Will there be anyone around who knows me, just a little?

Is anyone’s existence, other than my children, made better or worse for me being?

Will there be peace or insecurity for me?

There is no stopping the inevitable.  Is there a beyond?  Many seem to think so.

Is there a good reason why there is not?

Is the essence of what we refer to as life and spirituality an ongoing thing?  That which kick starts us into what we are, living as compared to something that may not be alive.  Yet, I do not know what is not alive.

Everything on this world is made up of tiny particles that move.

So do we.

Has anyone thought about this correlation.  The rock and the human?

“I figured I was going to meet her”

“I was thinking about my (late) wife,” 77-year-old John Little said from his hospital bed at UCSD Medical Center Tuesday….source signonsandiego.com.

That is a thought common to most people who have loved and shared their lives with another.

I call people like that soul mates.

That is the one aspect of life and living which no one really knows about, yet many “feel” these things when they have an opportunity to stare death in the face.

It is a comforting feeling, but only if it is mutual, between the deceased and the about to decease.  That is the kind of love that is not spoken of much these days, yet I still see it between couples.

Those who endure, settle their differences and participate in the act of living and life together.  When one goes, the other is as lost.  Two as one.

The erosion of relationships has been noticeable in my lifetime, not that it was always bliss between couples in the world.

In my mind, I think there are too many single parent families out there and it is a social norm.

In the past, many people were trapped in abusive relationships and could never escape due to economics, social and religious barriers.  I do not think anyone needs to suffer by being with someone.

On the other hand, the words of John Little make me feel good in a way.

Anything is possible in this life and maybe beyond it.

God is another word for….

“I am thankful to God for my blessings,” is something I have heard many times.

In other words, people choose to thank God or blame God for fortunes or misfortunes, as if God were another word for luck, as in lucky or unlucky.

Is this because they believe in God?  Or is it because they cannot explain why something occurred in their favor or not in their favor, so “God” is a convenient description for the indescribable?

What if God had nothing to do with whatever happened?

Would the possibility of you winning a Lotto or keeping your job as coworkers are being laid off just chance and the odds that you would luck out sooner or later could be predicted?

The word God is used for many things, from expletives to adjectives to the noun.

One’s good fortune often comes at the expense of another.  Life works that way.

Is God part of this?  Or is God another word for “don’t know.”

What fools we are!

That is the long and short of it.

There is good, evil and plain stupid.

We pass over control of our lives and allow the powers that be control them.  The North American Indians had a way, in many aspects, superior to ours.

Materialism or property ownership were unknown concepts to many tribes.  Many Chiefs preached and practiced compassion and sound judgement and they lived with the world, not carving out lives in it.

We can live without much that modern man thinks is indispensable.

We cannot survive without this planet.

The world supports our living.  We think cash, military prowess, religious dogma and GNP do.

Cash, arms and GNP don’t do a damn thing for you when there is no water for crops, or places to grow them as they have been paved or built over.  Religious dogma will not gain mankind one iota of betterment.

People forget that food does not originate in a supermarket, compassion does not come from a Nobel Peace Prize winner and love, love for the earth and all within it has no earthly origins.

When we as a species can finally figure that out, we will start to become what we were meant to be, otherwise we haven’t a hope in hell.

Mr. Radio Active

A friend of mine
calls himself bouzouki
relayed to me a tale
of the time
he felt morose
and in need
of spiritual elevation

as bouzouki tells it
his emotions lay on the floor
when Mr. Radio Active
stepped through the door

“What’s this I see, bouzouki?”
“I’m feeling a little down,” replied my friend
“We can’t have that!” exclaimed the Active Radio
“I’m going to show you.”

“Show me what?” asked bouzouki.

“How to play radioactive blues.”

the notes danced off the walls and ceiling
picking bouzouki up by the ears.
a smiled creased bouzouki’s face

when he felt the vibes rush in

massaging his battered spirit

bouzouki’s spirits
no longer lay on the floor
Mr. Radio Active
showed him what tunes are for.

bouzouki’s response:

The radioactive blues will last as long
As the rivers will ply the earth
They aren’t exactly a song
And no one will pay what they’re worth
I’ve heard it in a nanosecond
I’ve heard it lasts for years
I’ve heard every note in the end of the world
Wringing sadness out of our tears
It calls me through my suffering
It laughs when I complain of pain
And the Radioactive Blues will sing it
to me again and again

The Headless Horseman surrendered

“ICHABOD!”

I turned around, the hair on the back of my neck rose and my knees started shaking.  It was he, the legend without a head and his ferocious beast.

To my astonishment he carried in his blood soaked gauntlet a white flag.   His arm stretched out to give it to me.

“TAKE IT!”

I was no fool, even in my terror.  I accepted the flag.  My thoughts were so petrified, I didn’t even wonder how I could be hearing a voice from one who has no head from which to speak.

“I WILL NO LONGER PURSUE YOU!”

“Reeaally?” I squeeked.

“DO NOT MOCK ME OR I SHALL RETURN!”

I had the sense to keep my big mouth shut.

“I AM OFF TO STAR IN A SEQUEL WITH JOHNNY DEPP, I NO LONGER HAVE TIME FOR YOU!”

Thank God for the movies, I thought.

Gorgeous Blogger Award

A group of my peers and I have been honored by miss blissbait tonight.

As I stood at the podium, viewing the thousands of fans paying all of us homage, I choked up and tears welled into my eyes, for I am not gorgeous, but Miss Bliss thinks I am (which is just fantastic).

As the tears rolled down over my warts and into the creases where smooth skin used to reside years ago, I reminisced about the trials and successes which made it possible to receive this.

Such as my mother having me, which was not an easy chore, my father making sure I toed the straight line, and all the people in my life who helped me educate myself.

Then I started the much frustrating and often thankless job of writing a non-profit blog.

Finally recognition appeared on the horizon.  The competition was fierce.  I heard that Miss Bliss consulted with the American Idol judges to narrow the field from thousands to a few.

I wish to thank the artist extraordinaire and award presenter, Miss Bliss  for this beautiful award.

I am trying to learn how to meditate

I understand I will achieve peace and harmony and be in full control of my body, enabling me to slow down my heart and breathing to the point where even a doctor will think I am dead.

That is a good thing to know in case the IRS finds my secret bank account in Switzerland. I haven’t heard the IRS being succesful at getting money out of a dead deadbeat taxpayer.

I will also be able to walk on burning coals and lay down on a bed of sharp knives.

That is a lot of talents I will be able to perform that few others are capable of.

I only have two problems.  There are no job openings for experienced meditators and every time I try to meditate I fall asleep.

Horror scopes and fortune cookies

Blogging is not going anywhere, it becomes redundant very quickly, is time consuming and doesn’t pay very well.

Since I started blogging I received zilch for coin.

I thought to myself, “self, there has to be something more to life!”

A thought entered my mind.

Scare the daylights out of people by publishing a horror scope, then sell them fortune cookies to make them feel better.

For example, I would publish my horror scope for the people born in the second week of January and inform them mysterious forces will be at work through this cycle to destroy you.

Then I would write on those little pieces of paper in the fortune cookie they will receive riches and be blessed with an abundance of joy.

People, being naturally superstitious will not get enough of this.  I have already applied for a credit card and bank debit machine.

Changing

I communicate with myself.  Used to talk to myself and still do, but I realize it throws people off when they hear me conversing and they quickly assume I am crazy.

Now, I carry the on conversation in mute.

Sometimes I wake up and not feel all that optimistic about anything.

“Damn, what is going on?”

“You’re depressing!”  I reply to self.

“How can I not be depressed.  The world is going for a huge bowel movement and guess who is the toilet?”

“Dang, there you go again, doom and gloom.  Be thankful you have me to converse with, one of these days I will leave!”  I threaten me.

“You can’t leave me because you are me!”

That was a true statement I conceded.

“Besides, I love you,” I said to me.

That got me smiling

The problem with Christianity, they can’t leave the Old Testament alone.

Obama is or was a Christian.

He promised and it is in his direct power to allow gays to serve in the military.  It isn’t happening and who knows if it will.

Is it because of the Old Testament?

Jesus said to not judge.

For a man who supposedly abides by the tenets of Christianity most of his life,  can he drop them just because he is President?  Obama is not the only one who does this.

Jesus criticized much of the dogma of the Old Testament .

Not that the New Testament is perfect, but Jesus was apparently a man of “change”.

What Jesus said is conveniently forgotten and superseded by Old Testament dogma when the need arises.

That is a scary thought, isn’t it?

If my son had to fight in the military, I would buy him an AK 47.

During the course of the last decade, I have read many articles about the current  rifle of choice for the US military not being dependable, refusing to work when it is needed the most.

Just recently it happened again and American soldiers paid the price.

Regardless whether you agree with the war or not, it is criminal to send troops to battle without proper reinforcements or weapons, especially if you can afford it.

The responsibility for this falls to the lawmakers, as if I am aware of it for some time, they must be as well.

An Opportunity for Another Day

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving where we live.

I thought to myself, what is there to be thankful for?

Plenty.

For one, there is an opportunity to live one more day.

I have friends and family.

My children are doing well.

There are challenges for the future which must be overcome.  A  life without challenges is a boring one.

One small step for Ichabod, one giant step for mankind 

Without Honor

I see, hear and feel
atrocities that mankind
commits

I rail
against all
that repulses me

i find myself
stopping myself

“who are you?”
i ask myself

“to voice your
anger
at that which
you despise”

i think to myself
and see my past
knowing I am
without honor

it would be easy
to give in
to self defeat

as long as life
is not yet done
it may not be
too late

for honor to rise
from its previous
state

I woke up one morning and there was blood in my hair

I looked around,  I was in my room, my skull pounded. I couldn’t find my sports jacket and surmised I was in an altercation.  I felt like shit.  I was forty years old or thereabouts.

“Too fucking old for this,” I said out loud and grabbed the phone book. It was about 6:30 am and I was still drunk.

“You guys have a place close by?” I asked.

“Yessir.”

“When do you open?”

“Now”

And I walked to my first AA meeting, reeking of booze and dried blood on my hair.

I went for about three months, long enough to get into a different routine, made some friends, dated a former hosiery model who left me to date a married preacher, and quit.

It got depressing after a while listening to all the stories of those who were down and out alcoholics, too depressing for me.

“You guys make me want to go out, have a beer or two and listen to some good music.” I said at one meeting.

“You can’t, you’ll die!” they replied.

I went, never got drunk, enjoyed the beer and the music.

Life is never what you think it is going to be when you are ten years old.  The innocence of youth does not last long, does it?

Will they have Mogen David in Heaven?

by midnight they’re back on the street
and asks a stranger for a hand
and he gives them
one finger at a time

the midnight choir
starts to sing

will they have Mogen David in Heaven?
dear lord, we’d all like to know
will they will they have Mogen David in Heaven, sweet Jesus
if they don’t

who the hell wants to go?

I don’t know who wrote the words, but the following was sung in a mission some time ago and it sounds like the people there could relate, as I know I can.

I felt the “Call”

Many people feel “Called” to do something. With religions it usually means for someone to preach, “guide” people, “convert” people, be “missionaries”, stand at podiums and let your “virtue” be displayed so others look up at you and shake their heads in wonder how pious you may or may not be.

This “calling” business needs to be looked into a little bit.

I think it may actually be another word for desire, a desire to inflate one’s ego but in a way the person being “called” cannot easily be accused of vanity, which is the opposite of humility.

I have never been “called” to do anything, although self prods me into thinking I may be better than others in some areas of life,  I have discovered, it is mostly a delusion .

“Calls” are better left where they came from.  With the ego.

With the Bull Feces epidemic in full force, how are we to recognize truth?

There is an epidemic out there, of lies and deceit, from the top all the way down to the lowest.

There was a time men and women took pride in their word, no longer.

Lawyers, politicians, men of God and journalists become masters of spin, which is bull feces at its rankest state, for they make it sound so believable, and it is not.

How are we, the informed, going to determine what is true or not?

We cannot depend on others to tell us as they me be misinformed or have an agenda to “convert” people who no longer have a clue.

I have a solution.

I no longer pay them any attention whatsoever and lay low, out of their radar, as I do not want the stench to come my way.

I try and deal with life the best way I can, under my own terms, which is to be as truthful as possible, and if a situation arises when I have to play the spin game, there had better be a good reason, it usually means survival for my dependents.

That is it in a nutshell.  Truth is fairly simple to determine.  Over time  it does not change, needs no excuses, requires no apologies, does not hurt those who are used to it, cannot be easily undermined or contradicted, and those who live by it do not have to work hard remembering what they shoveled out the day before, so sleep comes easier.

If anyone has a better definition for truth, I would appreciate adding it here.

Thank you

Red Words

Anyone who has ever opened a bible and flipped through it’s pages would soon discover many publishers have taken the trouble to use red ink to highlight the words Jesus was to have uttered.

They take relatively few pages of the book.

Taking into account edits, changes, and translation issues plus the fact the oldest manuscripts found were about a generation after Christ had died, there are a few things he said that made sense to my mind.

Other people in the bible and in the present come after the fact trying to tell us what he really meant to say.

Although I think the words are easily enough understood.

It appears Jesus had not much use for religion, priests, evangelists, and others who make a living selling God.  He did not agree with discrimination, judgment or dogma.

He did not agree with many of the so called laws that the old testament produced.

No wonder he was executed.  If people really started following his advice and it appears some did, it would have reduced the power and economy of many.

As it would today.

Something to think about.

Trust

We talk about trust a lot.  “Trust me”  or a “Person you can trust” are common phrases.

In my experience, there have been times I wondered if I could trust myself, and sometimes didn’t make the grade.  Knowing this, how can people keep on selling the word “trust” when it has no meaning?

I am not suggesting that people aren’t capable of noble and great deeds, but many times they did not think themselves capable of it until the situation arose.

Trust, like truth, is something we aspire to but never attain.

And call no man your father upon the earth

But be not ye called Rabbi

Neither be ye called masters

But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.

And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.

The words above are reported to have been spoken by Jesus Christ.

It is difficult to believe the sincerity of the religion when they contradict the words of the one they claim to follow, isn’t it?

I Believe in Inspiration

We all have it

Some of us recognize it when it flits into our minds and we grab it, analyze it and do something with it.

Others don’t recognize it for what it is and discard it.

You don’t have to be intelligent or educated to be inspired.

It comes naturally

However if you don’t feed it and nuture it.

It may not come around to visit you

Anymore

I wonder if the Global Warming crowd ever looks out the window?

The past three years I have lived here, it is colder than thirty years ago, the summers are shorter, wetter and more miserable.

Last winter was the fourth coldest on record.

Thirty years ago, scientists were predicting another ice age.  Maybe those scientists were smarter than today’s scientists.

And speaking of pollution, when I see the constant fires and smoke in California, I would think that would screw up the environment more than a few smokestacks would.

If there is Global Warming, I want to feel it a little.

That is all I have to say.

Prayer

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly