We want knowledge because it makes us feel good knowing something. We pursue this goal of knowing using logic and reason to achieve the goal of feeling good we know something.
We desire to feel peaceful secure, powerful, wealthy and use logic and reason to achieve the feelings we feel will make us happy.
Unfortunately, sometimes our logic and reasoning, or what we feel are logic and reasoning, may not be logic and reasoning in another’s eyes, but emotions.
That is how crazy we really are 
My experience has been that God has little if anything to do with religion. The idea of the Bible being treated as poetry or literature would have my vote but with the understanding that it’s been a many times over rewritten and thus, reinterpreted work- often contradicting itself and miraculously changing it’s position on certain hot topics of the ages to suit the popular vision of the time. Its a collection of myths. And then, of course, rules to be doled out by those in power so that they might keep their power.
So I can appreciate it as a sometimes spectacular collection of prose but not as a clear, concise doctrine of what God tells us to do. It’s not a reliable source of evidence. And why would God need to tell us what to do through a book anyway? I, as well, am happy to support the idea that someone might take comfort in the words of this book. My argument isn’t against making an honest attempt toward emotional peace- that would be just mean. But I would encourage that person to seek his/her own comprehension and intuition of the Divine and watch out for belief systems that insist on fear mongering and require you to abandon your inner wisdom. Especially one that suggests we are innately bad and if we don’t follow this specific doctrine- we will be punished. Wow… what a great way to control people. Happens in cults and in abusive relationships too. What a coinkidink.
If it wasn’t a requirement of Christianity to impose it’s belief onto the rest of the world, I probably wouldn’t concern myself with the topic. It’s the insistence of conversion that annoys and infuriates me. To say that one has a more authentic relationship with God than someone else because they have a book that tells them so is foolish and pretty repulsive. That the ego is blatantly flailed about- MY God trumps YOUR God- is a decidedly unspiritual and overdeveloped aspect of humanity that has been given full rein in Christianity. I don’t read a poem and take it literally. I’m moved by the feeling. And by respecting it as such- I think you’re closer to God than if you were to subscribe to some man-made list of rules and regulations. Thanks again for inspiring me to write…..Megan
It is amazing that one of the most stressful times in many people’s lives is Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Akin to hell on earth for someone wanting to purchase some gifts and the day retailers are said to break even on their operations and jump into the black ink of profit.
Meanwhile, whatever thoughts you may have had in respect to Thanksgiving are erased within a few days.
They should separate these two days by at least a few weeks so the good Thanksgiving aura has a chance to linger before being chased away.
How so? You may ask.
Firms buying lists for one purpose or another, usually to try and sell you something you don’t need, pay for your name and any other information about you.
The only problem is, you aren’t getting the money for your name, just the aggravation.
I think anyone who calls you or sends you spam or snail mail, should pay you for the privilege of sending it to you.
…and emptied all the compressors to let the air back where it belongs, in the atmosphere, we may dilute the gasses causing global warming.
Anybody ever think of that?
“Yeah, let’s pick the things we like to believe in and throw out the rest! That way we can design a religion and a god to fit our liking. Which, by the way, is exactly what idolatry is. Sorry, God’s Word has the final say on these matters – not our “enlightened and inerrant” selves. Not liking something or saying, I don’t believe in it,” doens’t make it any less real. You either believe it all, or you believe none of it. Go ahead, keep intellectualizing Satan right out and you’ll find yourself ending up right where he will – in Hell. Which is real too. Call upon Christ who can save you from your sin, the evil world, and the real devil and his ways.”…..proclaiming Him
I read the comment to one of my posts and thought to myself, he’s accusing me of idolatry?
Many people believe God is a spiritual entity. Jesus was flesh.
Only one God according to Exodus, and more than one according to Genesis. After Moses received the Ten Commandments, where it stated in stone that there is only one God and no other, someone changed the story later and now Jesus and the Holy spirit became part of this, although Jesus never claimed to be God, man did that for him.
proclaiming Him, who is committing idolatry?
Our brain does the thinking, memorizing and sends signals everywhere, emoting emotions and controlling our bodies.
Thoughts apparently come out of nowhere and we choose to discard or pay attention to these thoughts, which may or may not produce some type of action or attitude.
Here we are, with complicated minds, and I wonder if we are in charge of our own minds or not.
We “feel” we are in charge, are we?
I read with interest a post written by miss bliss about a presence which brought her peace and comfort. This presence had a face.
During the course of my life, I felt something similar as well. Two years ago there were three faces in my mind’s eye and I felt at peace.
The reason I say my mind’s eye, these faces were more felt than visualized. It was weird. There was no relationship between visualizing or dreaming an image of a face as compared to the presence of these three somber faces entering the realm of my awareness.
I felt good after that experience.
Was it the mind playing with me, hallucinating in some abnormal way or was it due to physical issues?
I really do not know or care. I felt blessed by the experience.
When I was a child, Christmas represented Saint Nick and Black Peter, who toured the neighborhood in a horse drawn sleigh, paying visits to the residents and handing out gifts to the children.
It was the time of year when people were friendly with each other, hailing one another with “Merry Christmas” and smiling.
The sense of mankind being at peace with one another was almost tangible, at least to my young mind.
It may be a spirit we would wish to recreate during times of insecurity. After all, why else go through this nonsense called life?
Another day, another victim.
He reaches for the telephone and dials. A vicious grin slowly appears on his face. He loves to make them cringe. Every threat known to man is at his disposal in his memory banks and what he doesn’t know, creativity will fill in. He received the “Getting Blood From a Stone” award three years in a row.
Ring, ring, ring.
It’s been a good year. He loved going after those who lost their homes and cars. Thank God for cell phones, he thought, I like calling on Sundays the most, right after church.
Ring, ring, ring
“Hello,”
“Hi, this is Mr. Getitall, is the Sheik of Dubai in?”
i am grateful for being here
experiencing all the things i
lived through
all
the people i have known
and for still
being alive
i do not know why
i am
but i am
for those
who preceded me
those whom i have
known
you left
your mark
and memories linger
in a good way
i am grateful for this
planet
and the universe
if
an entity is
responsible for
me being
thank you
Deep in debt to each incoming breath
With out a word misspoken
I chant the litany, warding off death
In hopes the spell won’t be broken
I guess it would not surprise you to see me listening to “Live Dead”
The Grateful Dead being those that were given a decent burial by a wandering soul, doing the right thing.
bouzouki
that bag lady over there
is my mom
who got kicked out of the
old folks home
cause she ran out of coin
i would have helped her out
but i lost my job
i sleep in my car
they promised me change
i look at my kids
scavenging for food
and realize
there was plenty of change
we’re sending more
folk to beat those crazy taliban
in afganystan
at least they’re getting paid
to keep me safe, free and poor
i am thankful for global warming
as it is warm enough to sleep
in my car tonight
i am out of gas
tomorrow
we are all going
to the mission for turkey
and a prayer or two
and wish the change
would put us in a home again
and the beat goes on
…to find myself staring into the muzzle
of a polar bear
he wasn’t looking too happy
and I heard the low growl
of displeasure
not liking this situation, i asked
“Howdy Mr. Bear! What can I do for you today?”
“I’m tired of living in hydro carbon hell!”
“How can I help with that?”
“You’re the problem,” I could tell he was steaming.
i like living
“What can I do to get you out of hell?”
“Stop whatever you are doing to make it so,” he said.
“You mean stop driving my truck, heating my home, building junk?”
“Precisely!” he replied.
“How will I survive?” I asked him.
“If I can do it, so can you.”
i remember one summer night when I was fifteen, flat on my back, staring at the stars, talking with a friend, filled with a certainty that what had been taught to us as religion was incomplete. We both had ideas, but little knowledge, although my friend had found some books about eastern (oriental) thought. What I found made sense to me. What I know is limited at best, there have been moments of terrifying excursions into my own actions, views of synchronicity at work that defy logic or reason, long stretches of absurd stupidity, full of false hope and fantasy, and, acceptance of being here. Being human is not what we think it should be. Understanding comes in odd ways. Pain is a great and terrible teacher, and running from my limits just takes me longer to get through the lesson of seeing myself without MORE delusion than is necessary. Loving kindness works better than any anger, fear, or aggression, and that fails in the face of the intractable.
A good fire on a cold day is worth every moment it takes to be prepared. Clean water will do more for me than drinking something with a surprise in every drop. Life is full of twists and turns and the mystery behind it is still a mystery…….bouzouki
I’m dumb, which is the opposite of being intelligent.
That’s why there are so many questions on this blog. If I knew all the answers, I would be wealthy beyond my wildest dreams and be the CEO of the Know It All Corporation of America.
I’m busted, not the CEO of anything and am happy to open my eyes in the morning.
The problem with IQ tests is this. It gives a person a groove to live in. You may flunk, and believe you’re stupid all of your life when you may be a genius, or pass with flying colors and look down your nose at your fellow man, whom you come to think of as a group of lowly urchins because they cannot achieve your score, which is meaningless anyway.
I have no clue what my IQ is, never knew what it was or what it will be.
Ignorance is bliss
“I believe in God and don’t want to prove anything ,” Tasneem R.
The title of this post was my response to Tasneem’s comment.
That is the beauty of faith. Faith in God or faith God doesn’t exist.
Personal choice. Faith directs our paths, motivations and reactions.
We do not need to prove anything to anyone to determine what path we choose to follow.
That is truth and liberty.
Which may sound ridiculous, but life is like that.
If you put yourself in another space and observe the human condition from every aspect, it must be humorous.
Faith is one aspect of life that should get an award for absurdity, for everyone pro and con faith.
Everyone seems to have an opinion about God, even those who say God doesn’t exist.
We are all so sure we are “right” in our conclusions.
The truth is, no one knows.
How can one faction claim truth when the truth cannot be determined?
…before I entered
the state of reincarnation
i liked being a fly
buzzing around
annoying people
laughing at them
when they tried to catch me
with chopsticks
like that fellow
in the movie
Karate kid
then those big
monsters
with pink skin
invented bug spray
i complained to the united nations
and watched my family and friends
drop like…flies
i escaped
and got squashed
by a swatter
now i am reincarnated
as a mosquito
planning my revenge
on the first bit of pink skin
i see
and hope
i last longer
than i did
in my first life
One thing I have learned, forgot a few times and generally always go back to is smiling.
I noticed that people are always more receptive to you when you smile. Not always, but most of the time.
I have been asked, “What you smiling at?” by some insecure person, thinking I was laughing at them, but that wasn’t the case.
I feel better when I smile, and most of the time people smile back, not because they necessarily want to, they are being polite.
When they return the smile, it makes them feel better, so I figure to myself I am doing them a favor.
One day I’ll figure out how to make money by smiling.
No, I am not “homophobic”.
I have no issue with gay people.
However, I do find the sight of a man kissing a man or other forms of same sex love making repulsive.
It has nothing to do with discrimination or hate mongering.
It is not part of my genetic make up, so the feeling I get from seeing this has nothing to do with much they assume causes this, it is the way it is.
I make no apologies for it, nor do I think I should.
What prompted this post?
An article in respect to a fellow kissing another on the AMA Music Awards.
It was a beautiful summer day and I was driving my Triumph Bonneville down the street, enjoying the wind flowing through my hair.
A pretty blond flagged me down, “I missed my bus. It is only a few blocks ahead, can you catch up?”
I knew her well, “Sure, jump on.” She did and we roared off.
The bus was already beyond the town limits and my speedometer was around the eighty-five mile per hour marker as we headed into a turn.
As I was coming out there were two bicycles crossing the road with barely enough space between the two of them for me to squeeze through and we were all moving. There was no way in hell I could stop in time or avoid them.
I only had one option to prevent injury and maybe death and I took it. I took a guess where the unsuspecting bicycles would be by the time I got there and threaded the needle between the two, blasting through at over eighty miles per hour.
I checked my rear view mirror and they were ok and I caught the bus within thirty seconds.
After she got on the bus, I turned off the bike and sat there, letting the adrenalin flow out. I shuddered, realizing how close we all came.
A little while back I wrote a story of a Griffin who lost her only pup at child birth. Fortunately, we had four pups whose mother no longer wanted to nurture, so we put them with the Griffin.
She bonded with them.
The puppies were getting older and started developing teeth, hurting the Griffin at feeding time. The pups were eating solid food as well, so I put the Griffin with our other dogs in the kennel, where she could be outside with her friends.
She escaped.
Four times.
I finally saw how she was doing it. She climbed to the top of a six foot high chain link fence and squeezed out the top of the gate. She got stuck the last time as I secured the gate better. I helped her out of her predicament and put her in a totally enclosed cage she could not escape from.
I felt a little bad about this as she was not trying to run away from home, but to be in the house with us and “her” puppies. I went outside and looked at her, she at me. “What am I going to do with you,” I wondered aloud. “I respect what you desire, and I do not like human cages either.”
I went back inside, discussed it and went out again. The Griffin was wagging her tail when she saw me, as if she knew. I opened the door of the cage and off she went. When I got back to the house she was waiting for me in front of the patio door. I opened it and she scrambled inside, looking for her adopted pups.
Life
I smelled bad and knew it. It was not a good feeling being on that airplane. Without a shower in a week or change of clothes. I had gone to the Salvation Army the day before to buy a shirt, underwear and socks for about a buck and a half.
I was on my way home and the flight caused me to sweat, making the situation worse.
I was seated next to a judge, a kindly man near retirement age. I kept my arms close to my sides, for I didn’t want my smell to render anyone unconscious.
I had no coin or plastic. I was broke.
The stewardess rolled up the booze cart. God, I sure could use one of them right now, I thought.
“Can I get you anything?” she asked.
“No thank you,” I answered.
“Get him one on me,” the judge interjected.
I accepted, my nerves were on edge. “Thank you, I’ll send you the money when I get back home.”
“No need,” replied the judge, “If you ever see a person in need, remember this and pass it on.”
I have remembered and passed it on
is a place
men rarely roam
full of life
the forest is
plants, animals, reptiles and bugs
all alive
not knowing or caring
what mankind do
until
the day
they see and hear
machines of destruction
rolling into their world
trees are cleared
life chased out
suburbia enters
the fray
the babbling brook
is concrete now
the bear’s home is covered
with an architect’s
monument to self
a convenience store
and gasoline station
clutter
the meadow
that was
we call this progress
for we have the right
to push aside
the envelope of life
to satisfy
our “need”.
cold biting wind
step into a sunlit corner
two lizards are there before me
i think
“Its almost winter, what are they doing out?!”
bouzouki
for the most part
in all
we live in harmony
we dance a song
as a team
as one
swimming to our destination
swimming to our destination
all of us
together we
regardless of faith or creed
shoulder our beliefs
or social standing
and perceived societal ratings
arrive at the same door
all the way home
what will lie behind it
what awaits us
if anything
if anything
is anyone’s guess
we can never really know
forever more
time doesn’t care
while we speculate
while we write our story
we read the story
we read the story
of a homeless drunk
of a slumming angel
risking his life
who offers his soul
to save a drowning child
to gift a drowning child
in the raging, freezing waters
shelter from death’s icicled fingers
of earth’s swollen river
pulling down, down, down
when i approach that door
when i get home
at the end
and let loose these bags
i hope
i hope
the homeless drunk
that earth-bound angel
will stand by me
will scoop me up
as we turn the knob
as we walk through the door
to see
right into the heart of
what lays beyond
what lays beyond
the poem within a poem is authored by miss bliss, thank you
I was engaged in a conversation with a local business owner yesterday. We were discussing life and judgment. He is a Christian.
“My wife and I like to dance on Thursdays,” said he, “We met another couple and got along, however she seemed to be a little slutty in her manner of dress and the way she talked. My wife and I were discussing this and wondering what we were to do. The other couple invited us to dinner last weekend, and you know what? They are really nice people!”
“That’s our biggest problem,” I answered, “Our judgment. I have Islamic, Christian, Atheist friends and friends who could care less one way or the other, and for the most part, they are good people.”
I followed up with, “I’m not a Christian, but that tale of the Samaritan is a good one. You never know who it is who will help you out, give a hand. Maybe the Samaritan was a drinker or non religious, we don’t know do we? The fellow he helped could care less other than the fact the Samaritan was there for him. “
In a very controversial experiment, NASA is sending up the aging hydrogen bombs the US has in it’s cold war stockpile, place them on one side of the moon and explode them to alter the course of the moon’s orbit.
The moon has gravity. NASA’s aim is to get the moon as close to earth as possible, without hitting earth and causing a major disaster, or worse, a black hole.
When the Moon nears the earth, all of the fossil fuel pollutants and other stuff we don’t want will be sucked up by the Moon’s gravity and end up on its arid landscape to rot. A few humans may be pulled up as well, but the scientists calculate it is worth the risk.
NASA claims earth will be return to a normal climate within 48 hours of the moon passing.
You find yourself waiting in line to see if you go to heaven or hell, and the first thing they stick in your face is an application form without giving you a pen or pencil to fill it out.
Being a ghost, you don’t carry these writing tools with you.
They send you into Limbo. Without a completed application and no one around with any authority, they don’t know what to do with you. Limbo is comparable to Gaza.
Fortunately there is a government in the spirit land so they get together and discuss what they are going to do with the burgeoning ghost population of Limbo. What makes it worse is that some people actually like it there and want to stay, like the West Bank.
The Liberal spirits draft legislation to release the Limbonians into Heaven. The Liberals have a majority and the legislation makes it to the spiritual senate, which argues about the bill for months and finally approve it with the stipulation that all releases to Heaven must be accompanied by a signed application form.
I was reading a number of comments in response to a story of a woman who lost her job some time ago and how she was dealing with it.
She was not far away from not being able to pay her rent. She found an old camper for $600 and plans to live in it. She is 58 years old.
One aspect that surprised me and didn’t, was that many employers check credit scores of job candidates to rate their eligibility.
When you have no income, you can’t pay your bills, and your credit score goes to hell and so does your eligibility to rent another place. Two strikes and you are out of the game.
The further you spiral down, the faster the descent.
The deck seems stacked in favor of the employer and the corporation. The woman in the story had guts, resolve and was prepared to ride this thing out one way or the other come hell or high water.
Makes you want to eliminate credit reporting agencies by legislation because they facilitate discrimination.
to be or not to be
free
is a state of mind and soul
no one needs to die for it
it comes naturally
for those who wish it so
love is the key ingredient
of free things great and small
for the other
traps the mind
within walls
preventing hope
from walking
hand
in hand
with freedom
as they journey
to and fro
I have had the fortunate experience of having a few fairies drop by and provide me with smiles during my tenure as a blogger….
I shall not name them
for they wish
to remain
incognito
which is smart thing
for a fairy to be
as they are tiny beings
full of fun
energy and light
a fairy’s sole purpose
is to provide
the key
for us to see
how happy we may be
if we follow the sparkles
they leave
by the wake
of their flight
Most of us do this in one way or the other, chase the green.
Many of us are satisfied going somewhere, performing a certain task and letting someone provide the green. Others beg, borrow, gamble or steal for green.
For many, that is what life is all about, chasing the green to “enjoy” life and live the dream.
There is another green out there. This other green grows, withers and dies, but from the time it appears and until it matures it is beautiful, and requires none of the other green to enjoy.
Think about that for a minute.
Life is something every single one of us two legged mammals are aware of.
Many of us take life for granted. We wake, sleep, dream, live, act and react, and die.
Once you appreciate life, it is difficult to take for granted, isn’t it?
When we truly become aware that life is more than a job, debts, chasing the material dream and revolving in the same pattern day after day, the enormity of what is, becomes awesome.
In that sense we are a spiritual species, if we allow ourselves. It is the spirit of life which touches us.
The difference between people is some know this and some don’t, some care, and some don’t.
That’s life.
Now that water is discovered on the moon, it has become more desirable as it will allow mankind to survive, even if it means being in a protected environment.
The value of the real estate up there just increased.
There is one flag on the moon. Does it mean if someone else landed on it, they can’t claim it as theirs?
Will the moon need defending from the evil people?
Will corporate or government bodies set up real estate and moon rules.
Will the freedom that is up there slowly disappear?
Are we going to screw up outer space too? Are we the evil empire?
I’m standing outside looking at the night, thinking about this world and the state it is in and my place in all of it.
It’s a tiny place, virtually indistinguishable from the rest of the peoples. I do not wish it to be any different in this respect. I notice the tiny orbs of light in the heavens and realize there are more stars than there are people on earth, One solar system for each of us. I wonder if there is a connection.
Then I think about this plasma like substance that fills space. Science discovered this fairly recently. Until this discovery, it was assumed the space was a void vacuum. The universe was a huge nothing other than the solar systems and stars which occupied it.
However, methinks this recent discovery was known to us long ago.
There are hints from the past which lead me to this conclusion. There are many aspects of life which can spur the imagination, such as why do kangaroos only exist in Australia, or Giraffes in Africa?
Why is the past so clouded? Why did people like Jesus and Moses and Mohammad and Buddha and the Buffalo Woman make such an impact on the everyday lives of people, over the span of centuries and even today? We do not have faithful followers for any other famous people in history, only for those who had a perceived connection to the Creator or Conductor of this all.
The people who have impacted our lives taught people about life, living and the other side. A side our senses cannot discern, yet most of us feel is there, whether taught or imagined.
There appears to be an order to life, for good and evil. It appears to me that is obvious enough. It also appears obvious to me that the earth is filling with evidence of our existence and there are more of us being added every day. We are being overcrowded in many areas, a natural disaster in the making, and if it isn’t natural, a man made one.
Is it really a disaster in the making, or the way it is meant to be? Is this all orchestrated and conducted?
The thought gives one pause to consider the unthinkable, doesn’t it?
Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street money machine people love to hate said modern banking performed a vital function and described himself as just a banker ‘doing God’s work’.
Investors are asking Goldman to be less “greedy”, and are themselves wanting a bigger slice of the pie according to yahoo.com. “Big shareholders at Goldman Sachs have asked the U.S. bank, on track to deliver $20 billion in bonuses, to pass more profit to investors after it quadrupled quarterly net profit, the Wall Street Journal reported.”
I wander what Blankfein’s boss, God, thinks about all of this?
When I was a kid, they taught us in health classes we should have a physical every year. I was twenty-nine the last time I had a physical and that was for a job. I swore I would never go through that procedure for a job again and never did.
In the 1980’s I saw an interview with a general practitioner who was in his late sixties. He said something to the effect, “Given nourishment and rest, ninety-five percent of ailments are self curing. People want immediate relief so they see us. The other five percent of ailments are what we are needed for. For many cases you can tell if a person is healthy or not, by looking at their eyes, color of skin, breathing, and color and condition of fingernails.” That made sense to me and I live by that.
It appears there are new guidelines for mammograms and pap smears. Women apparently don’t need these tests as often anymore. Having lived with a woman who had received dubious results from a mammogram and subsequent biopsies to finally discover the lumps were not life threatening, I understand what kind of emotional torture this constant screening puts a person through.
Now that money is an issue, these “required” tests are not as important anymore.
Makes one wonder, how honest are those who we place our trust with?
Have you ever read or heard something and it stuck?
It comes back when you least expect it. A piece of wisdom, something out of the ordinary, which keeps on coming at you with a renewed truth.
Sometimes words fly around in my head and land when I least expect them to. Then they demand I pay attention.
Makes me wonder why some things have more of an effect than others.
I don’t think I’ll ever figure me out, never mind anyone else.
Meanwhile the words keep landing.
There is a clock, not really a clock, but it serves the same purpose. If the figures are halfway right, and I suspect they are, it illustrates our path to financial oblivion. This will also create chaos and insecurity for the planet as a whole.
This clock is a guage for the beginning of the end.
I and many others see it coming.
Is there any way to reverse this clock?
Maybe so, but do we have the guts to do it?
Here is the link to The Clock. Judge for yourself.
…and launched them into the ponds and streams of our youth. We never wore life jackets as we didn’t know they existed and I never could swim.
It was wonderful.
We built tree houses with scraps of used wood, I lost one of them because my home made stove I invented blew up from the gasoline I had put in it. We scurried out of that place faster that you can imagine and watched our labors disappear in an inferno. No fire truck ever appeared.
I bought my first rife at twelve, an ancient World War One surplus Lee Enfield . I drove a tractor with a cultivator when I was ten and a tow truck hauling cars at fourteen.
I studied accordion for a while and was told by my teacher I was pretty good, until I had to learn the difficult stuff, where one set of fingers were out of sequence with the other, and I got internally confused.
I had to work the fields, picking potatoes, hauling bales, and weeding. There was canning to be performed for the winter and wooden soap box cars to be built.
My friends and I played soccer in twenty below temperatures out in the snow and baseball in the spring. We had no uniforms or helmets, and we wouldn’t have worn them anyway.
As I got older, I had to crawl in a septic tank, which smelled obscene, to repair a pump and during one storm climbed on the roof with a hammer and nails to try and save the shingles as they were flying away.
Now I sit writing posts on a blog, wondering if I will be able to pay my obligations next year.
After reading what I just wrote, I wonder what kind of fool am I?
It is all her fault. Without her, I wouldn’t be. And that’s not all.
I was thinking back in time after reading an article about the clothes hanging rebellion of 2009, when a woman said, “If my husband has a right to have guns in the house, I have a right to hang laundry!” Now that is a freedom loving woman I respect.
After we immigrated, we discovered we were thrust back into time, without the benefit of modern conveniences or running water. I am not ancient old, so as you know, this happened less than fifty years ago.
My mother who is still alive by the way and still has a few years left in her managed to wash clothes in a wringer washer, winter and summer, and hung them outside to dry, inside in the wintertime as it was just too cold.
Most people in our area dried clothes that way and we were never thought of as trailer trash, I don’t think.
Somehow, we managed to stay clean for the most part. Obviously we couldn’t take showers every day because of the lack of running water and we all had to take the laundry tub bath every week.
The water was heated on a wood stove.
Yup, my mom orchestrated those fine deeds. Tell that to the manicured wives of the jet set age whose poor eyeballs are offended by seeing underwear out there to dry. My God, what do they do in clothing stores, close their eyes while walking past the underwear sections?
I think I will start a new reality show. It will be called, “Get a Life!”
Oskar Schindler
They don’t teach that do they?
For the most part, lying is not a good thing, especially lying to yourself. That can be destructive, to self and others.
When you communicate with yourself, honesty is key.
There have been some famous liars, and they were loved and cherished for their lies. To my way of thinking, rightfully so.
All those people throughout the ages who lied when authorities or others sought innocent men, women and children to do them harm, like the people who sheltered the Jews, gays, blacks and other so-called undesirables during the Nazi push for purity.
Many times in history people discovered, they can not or will not tell the truth, to save the life of another.
I do not believe any God would have a problem with that kind of lie, do you?
Rolling Thunder, Martin Luther King Jr.
...the non conformists who taught us there is a better way.
Many were of various faiths, some not.
They passed on wisdom in the form of the Ethic of Reciprocity. They shared their observations about mankind.
They taught us how to spot a hypocrite, and why it is not a good idea following the hypocrite’s path.
They had no use for oppression. They taught about peace and love.
They were not scared to dream and achieve their dreams. They goaded us into trying to attain a higher ideal for humanity.
They espouse wisdom and had no use for hatred. They believed in respecting the world and all life forms.
These were great individuals who dared speak the truth.
I am fortunate and thankful for those who risked their all for the benefit of the human race.
“If it weren’t for us fighting for you, you would have no FREEDOM,” argued the Righteous Warrior.
“Really? Is that why people can’t hang their laundry outside in America anymore, because you fought for the right to abolish eye sores?” I asked, “Is that why honest pacifists like myself have to jump through all kinds of hoops because YOU say it is for my own good?”
“Damn right. We don’t like torturing and collateral damage either, but it must be done for the overall good!” he smiled that patronizing, I know better than that clown smile.
“I can see there is not much I can say to convince you otherwise, is there?”
“Not from you, what do you know?” the Righteous Warrior asked.
“Apparently not much, not compared to you anyway,” I agreed.
A loud blast shook the building he and I were in. The men with ski masks surrounded the Righteous Warrior and I. As they dragged us away, I said to him, “Remember, they will do to you what you do to them. Have a great day!”
Thumbs up, thumbs down…buying into hell
The Colosseum tradition is alive and well in North America, and the thumbs up, thumbs down signals they used to spare a gladiator or allow him to die is gaining popularity in comment threads of articles. They are saying plenty about the state of society and prevailing mindsets.
Today, the Globe and Mail published an article Canada handed over innocent Afghans to torture.
I read the comments and it surprised me how many justified this atrocity. Beside each comment was an incrementing thumbs up or thumbs down.
Damn, I thought World War Two was all about fighting Nazi terror, genocide, preemptive invasions and torture.
Now, people see fit to justify and agree to it.
As long as it is somebody else, who is getting tortured that is.
When you allow government, your government, to find a way to accomplish crimes against humanity, and they use their experts to convince you it must be done for the overall good, you are the fool for believing it.
One day, innocent little old you may be hauled off and tortured a spell because a neighbor you pissed off called an 800 number and told them you were a terrorist.
You scream, “I’m innocent!”
You don’t have any rights baby. You are a suspect. Somebody “fingered” you. No trial in this new politically correct land. You’re guilty as sin.
Five years after the fact, if you are still alive, somebody confesses it was all a lie, but it was too late.
It wouldn’t have happened if Government were made to stop this crime.
Tigercity sent in this comment to a previous post. I identify with his words. I also published my response below his comment.
Of course my reply was ‘tongue in cheek’, plain old British cynicism!
Writerdood has provided the REAL question mark. An omnipresent and omnipotent God “should” instantly recognize the most efficient & effective method of communication and carry out the process instantaneously.
Has He? One doubts..
But we mustn’t doubt! oh ye of little faith….!
Were we not tuned in when God broadcast his perfect message?
The flock will tell you He already has sent us his perfect message.. the Bible, intepreted to us through His Son.
We of the modern age however probably require an upgrade & a top manager like God must surely realise that He is losing the fight. There are atheists coming out of the woodwork threatening his podium position and countless faiths to boot muddying the waters of mutual co-existence and peace.
Hey God, the world is mess and what do you do?
“Refer to my book, published 2,000 years ago please”
That is what I’d call….out of touch.
In the realm of the unknown, not understood, cosmic wonders of life, universe, quantum physics, dimensions and plain old life, karma appears to exist.
Why?
That is the question which has plagued mankind since the beginning.
Atheists cannot answer this. Religion trys, but fails miserably. One genius we all have known, Einstein, gave up trying to figure it out as well, but acknowledged that life is more than what meets the eye, a mystery.
….needs a little bit of inspiration and creativity.
A bit of music perhaps, some jokes and a story or two. We the people want entertainment, not politics. It is up to the President to set an example, if he can’t do it, what good is he?
This is an idea to help perk up America’s mood.
You know, if he followed my advice, he may actually have a chance at being famous and remembered with a smile after his term is done
While I fumble around with the envelope, which has been handed to me by the accounting firm of Cheat and Who, my eyes drift off into the audience and the glare of the stage lights blind me for but a moment.
I think of miss bliss, the previous awardee, who was late in giving it, setting off a curse of a million kisses. I don’t think the next recipient wishes a million kisses from me, so I will be on time with the awarding of this precious symbol of achievement.
It is not easy, as the field is extremely competitive. My fingers finally find the slip of paper and I stand up behind the microphone,
“For extraordinary contributions to mankind, the winner is the self described ‘tart of the arts’, kseverny of Kseverny’s Blog. This is a muchly deserved award, for this master chef, poet, film director, actor, producer, musician, comedian extraordinaire and whose famous greeting as in ‘Yo Bliss’, never fails to inspire.”
Congratulations Kokot, it is well deserved for you bring many smiles to your followers. Do not forget, in seven days, you must pass this prestigious award to another
Particulars as to origin, rules and other legalese may be found at
Would someone be kind enough to let Kokot know he received this award in case he missed it on CNN, MSNB, AP, Reuters, Fox News, the BBC, the Oprah Winfrey Show or Obama’s Saturday Morning radio show.
I live in the land of paranoia.
Where it seems it is “them” against us.
Not a good way to be, is it?
Who are “they”?
How many of them are there?
Why are we scared?
We are fearful of what we eat, as the news constantly tells us that this will cause that. The aging creme section in the pharmacy is doing well and plastic surgeons are making a killing. For those who cannot let their past go, Viagra fits the bill.
Scared of aging, as it is one step closer to dying. A part of life we do not like to experience, although we have never been there.
There is so much for us to understand, and we cannot allow ourselves to because of fear.
Ultimately, it is our own fear. Those whom we have been taught to despise and hate, the commies, the immigrant, the poor, the brown people, the Jews, the Muslims, the Gay, the other religion and so many others, we discover are people too and not that much unlike ourselves, even likable many times.
But it is our nature, because if we allow them, they’ll get us or make our lives miserable, even if we don’t know them.
Fear and the ecstasy.
from writerdood;
They were after me yesterday. As I rounded the corner coming back from the bathroom, I found several women gathered around laughing. I wondered what they had found out about me, and why it was funny? But I wasn’t going to let them win, so I ignored it.
When it was time to go to lunch, I went into the lunchroom and found several guys having a discussion that ended as soon as I came in. They didn’t want me to know they were talking about me, but I’d caught them. I pretended I knew what they were saying just to make them nervous, and they went away.
Driving on my way home, I stopped at a light and a policeman near the corner stared at me. When the light was green, he followed closely behind, checking my plate. When he had confirmed it was me, he reported my position and then drove off. I don’t know why he bothered, I’m sure they can find my position through my phone anytime they want. Maybe he needed visual verification.
I talked with my wife about work over dinner, but she wasn’t really interested. She’d probably heard everything already from them. She talks to them all the time. I think she trusts them, but she really shouldn’t. Sometimes they lie, just to see how I will react.
It would bother me if I didn’t know who they were. Fortunately I do, and while they don’t know it, I’m watching them to. All the time I’m watching them. One of these days when they’re watching me, they’re going to turn around and I’ll be standing there. I don’t know how I’m going to accomplish that, I’m still working on it.
from bouzouki;
I went to a man’s home, to find what services he needed, that could be provided. He was adamant that we all needed to be armed against the other, there was no compromise, the world was full of crazy people. I acknowledged that there are plenty of crazy people, but that most were just looking for a way to get by, just like him. He wanted to know how I knew about crazy people, and I talked about working with damaged people, unarmed, and with the strict admonition not to harm others.
“We don’t spend enough money on fear.”
From makeup, to insurance, to bombs, and fancy cars, the list is endless, buying in fear, hiding from that fear and striking out in fear when that fear is recognized.
….are alike in many ways. A land ocean and a body of water.
I have been fortunate to have lived on both. It is amazing how much the wind sounds like surf at times. I remember sitting in my home by the sea, thinking there was a great wind out there, and when I opened up the window or a door to investigate, it was the sound of the surf.
Life is so much like the sea and prairie.
The governments of the “civilized” democracies are quick to condemn human rights in China. Yet, when you look at it, they still execute people in America, there is reason to believe that thirty prisoners in Gitmo may be innocent of the charges, if any, are against them, people are going hungry and the rule of law, regardless if just or not, prevails.
There have been people who are now cinders or rotting in graves, who have paid the price in a preemptive war. Many more have been injured and lost everything they once owned.
There is much finger pointing going on and the propaganda machine is running at maximum efficiency.
A person really can’t trust anyone or any government anymore, can they?
They preach lofty ideals and moral hazard. To what avail, when they themselves will compromise with the devil to achieve an end.
There has been plenty of accusations and clamor about those sub prime people, you know, those people who caused this mess a few years ago, the ones who couldn’t afford their homes and set off a financial crisis.
I just received my electrical bill for last month. It was as much as my mortgage payment and that was for only one month. It was a warm month, the heaters not being on much of the time. This is a normal household and the home isn’t that big.
I buy gasoline for my truck, a dollar a liter and in the winter it seems to guzzle more and twenty dollars barely gets me a quarter of a tank. A pack of cigarettes is over ten dollars, so I don’t smoke that much.
There has been much going on the last few years that is beyond the control of the consumer. Cattle ranchers are struggling here, selling cattle below cost to survive and you would never know it by the prices charged in the supermarket.
I talked to a farmer who had to destroy 600 acres of corn, due to mold. Fortunately he had crop insurance, but there is no profit in crop insurance, it lessens the pain of the loss.
There is talk that for many who have lost jobs, these jobs won’t be returning and we know the government won’t be extending benefits forever. When that runs out, it will be a different world out there for many who have managed to keep a roof over their heads, spending their savings and benefits.
No where left to turn is there?
What I can’t figure out is why? Why didn’t they renegotiate the mortgages, even if the value was no longer there? The money would still be coming in. Now they are selling vacant properties for a fraction of what they are worth.
This whole thing smells big time.
It is only a matter of time before it explodes further. Are the green shoots helping the 40 million plus who go hungry in America? Those who have no work? Those can no longer pay their bills, not because of choice, they just don’t have the coin?
This is a recipe for disaster. I get angry thinking about the governments in this world allowing private citizens and corporations to gamble with commodities such as food and fuel.
One day, the silent majority will get angry enough to say, hey wait a minute. We want change and now! No more bullshit wars against countries who weren’t threatening us. No more bailing out mismanaged corporations. If Ford can do it, too bad for Chrysler and GM.
Yeah, there would have been pain, but this way it is longer and greater and many more suffer.
Somebody ultimately pays for the $22 billion in Goldman Sach bonuses, the extravagant seven or eight figure incomes for the sports celebrities. Do you think the rich are paying for it?
No, it is we.
I, and so many of us are angry. That is not a good place for government or big business to be, for this didn’t have to be.
We are completely a look based society. It’s astounding! I experience this all the time. I even play with it a bit because it fascinates me. I’m one of those women who can look VERY plain or Very pretty. And when I go out very plain people ignore me, are rude even, it’s just wild. But when I fix up, people fall over themselves to be nice. I’ve even had guys approach me when I’m done up and I’ve flat out said, “I don’t really look like this. I hardly ever wear this much make-up or heels.” Beeezare. The funniest time EVER was I took my car in for a smog check one day, my child was tiny and I probably looked a bit haggard. Old jeans and shirt, chuck taylor’s, no make-up. The mechanic was a little rude and ended up telling me my car needed all kinds of work. Hundreds of dollars worth. My gut told me he wasn’t being honest. I waited a week. Got a baby-sitter. Went back in a mini dress, heels, make-up, hair styled. He was SOOOO nice. And guess what? I passed the smog test. Without any work being done on my car. Amazing. How funny we are!
The above was contributed by miss bliss of blissbait fame
i have known miss bliss awhile
and like many in blogland
have never met her in person
i thought about this story
and painted an image
of miss bliss in my mind
the result
is not what one
would expect
for I see not physical
plain or pretty
it is her spirit
that glows
Considering how much we read, hear and see in the media, there does not seem to be a lot of attention given to children, or maybe I am not looking in the right place.
We hear of wars, financial turmoil, people losing homes, people going hungry and other events.
Rarely are we exposed to the effects on children.
A child who used to sleep in a comfortable bed, with a full tummy and feeling safe, now finds he or she is in the twilight zone of life.
Why?
Money.
Whatever adults do or don’t do with their lives, future generations would be much better off if we considered the children in this life.
What happens to a child when young, will have an effect when they are grown. Witness the terrorists and suicide bombers of this world if you do not believe me.
…..there will be hell to pay.
We don’t eat dogs or cats as a rule because they are considered pets for many. Cats purr and dogs will try to lick your face and wag their tails. Both are considered “cute”.
Pigs can be pets too and cute when tiny. When they get bigger, most people don’t think they are as cute as dogs or cats, consequently we find pig meat on the supermarket shelves.
Cattle are cookable. Horses not.
At least that is the impression I get.
People are treated the same way. If you are ugly like me, you get pushed aside. If you’re gorgeous or handsome, the world opens up.
If there is a society the citizens of another society deem to be ugly, that will be an excuse to get rid of them.
We are so predictable
I stepped into the room which resembled St. Peters chapel in all of its glory. I saw him sitting at the desk at the far end of the room. As I approached, my footsteps echoed off the marble floor.
“Sit down,” he ordered.
I sat and looked at him.
“We have been receiving complaints about you Mr. Ichabod,” he spoke softly but firmly. A man used to the trappings of power and affluence. He was in control.
I didn’t respond.
“Who are you, to be writing all that garbage about us? Who are you? A nobody, a nothing?” he sneered. “Look at this office. I can snap my fingers and you would be no more. Do you understand? You, the little mouse with the big mouth!”
I still didn’t say anything.
“What kind of lowlife are you, daring to challenge me!”
“I am a metaphor. I exist only in your mind. I threaten you because you see me in you. A frightened little man running from that which cannot be.”
“Ha, a metaphor are you? When will you grow up? I am worth something. You are worth nothing!”, the contempt oozed from his being.
“Worth!” I said snapping my fingers. Now we were in an open field and he was sitting behind an old box. “What were you saying about worth?”
He looked around, not believing, rubbing his eyes then it dawned on him. He slowly turned his head and looked at me, terror in his eyes.
“Now you know what your concept of worth really means. It is nothing. Do you understand?”
He nodded in assent.
I called the CEO of Goldman Sachs today after he claimed his company is doing “God’s work.”
“Hello, Blankfein speaking.”
“This is Ichabod. I understand you are working for God, the almighty.”
“Why yes, we are,” he affirmed. I could tell he was smiling and probably thinking we are all a bunch of fools.
“Good. I want to talk to God. Can you put God on the line or do you have another number I can call?”
“What kind of nonsense is this!” He was getting perturbed.
“I didn’t say I was working for God, you did. I just confirmed this. Are you lying to me?”
“I don’t lie!”
“Really?,” I just caught him in one. “Put up or shut up. Get me God!”
“That’s impossible!”
“Really?” again. “So how does God pay you? If it is impossible to speak to God, how do you know you are working for God, unless God signs your checks?”
“I pray you fool!” He was angry now.
“To who?” Now I was smiling. Caught him in his own bullshit.
There was silence on the other end.
I hung up.
Last week I purchased some gasoline for my truck. On the pump it said I paid Federal Tax, which makes me a bonafide taxpayer, or king of the bail out machine.
Yesterday I read that General Motors lost a paltry $1.6 Billion dollars making fine trucks, like the one I drive.
I called up the CEO of General Motors.
“Pack up your stuff and get the hell out. You’re fired!”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Ichabod the taxpayer and I own you.”
“What nonsense is this!” he didn’t believe me.
“We gave you billions, told your shareholders and creditors to take a hike so you would have no worries, you took my gas money, and you have no bills, a fat salary and bonus and you still can’t make any coin. What good are you?”
“Weeeelllll, this is preposterous!”
“Really?” I said. “You took my coin and sent your factories to other places so I can’t buy gas anymore. What kind of loyalty is that? What kind of businessman are you? Not a good one in my eyes. Maybe you are a bureaucrat at heart?”
There was silence on the other end, for he knew, I knew, the truth.
“If you’re not out by the time I count to ten, I’m going to send my little friend with the big black horse for you!”
He left.
That’s us
We’re starting a new club
Hungry of America, HA for short.
Unfortunately for Corporate America, Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers won’t be getting our coin. Those doctors who specialize in liposuction and tummy tucks, will have to move back to appendix and tonsils or butts and boobs. Because we got no coin, the farmers and WalMart Superstores won’t be getting anything from us either.
While we roam from food bank to garbage can, foraging for food, the black and whites chase us away, claiming we are undesirable as we have no place to stay.
Hopefully our new membership cards with HA all over them will give us the credibility we once had. Many of us used to work, but machines and hungrier people than us took away our jobs.
They have been speaking of a leaner America for years, now they have us, they look the other way.
Sarah Palin wrote a stupid book and she makes the front page. Over forty million HA members don’t get enough to eat and we are forgotten the next day. It will be Thanksgiving soon, they’ll feed us for one day and beat their chests bragging how great they are.
The day after we will be forgotten, till Christmas, and they’ll think of us once more. I thank God for these special days, otherwise we’ll never be known.
Now HA will be in control. We have only one thing left, that is our right to vote for now. We’re running for office and putting an HA POTUS and a HA congress in control. We don’t give a damn what color our POTUS is either. Mark my words baby, when HA gets in, there will be change.
It will be about food for everyone. No more wars we can’t afford. Screw Wall Street cause they ain’t feeding us, better we get our money in return.
The world may not think we’re so super anymore, but we’ll all be smiling, I promise you that, burp!
…you had a message you wished humanity to hear and understand, and you, being responsible for life and universe, knew the limitations of mankind, how would you do this?
Consider this:
That doesn’t leave that many options open does it? God can appear to everyone and say, “I am here.” But that has not been done according to my knowledge, anywhere, anytime. I don’t think that is in the cards.
Maybe the essence of the message and morality is programmed into our very genes, which we can suppress or nurture, ignore or destroy.
For those who may not understand this, pray and pay homage to God constantly, do you think that God created people in order to tell God how great, sweet and noble God is, when humanity has no clue what true greatness is, nor perfection or what may lay beyond this dimension called life?
Do you think God created humanity to satisfy a Godly ego and loves to be idolized and worshiped?
We all have brains, even the illiterate and mentally challenged.
Sometimes we don’t always use them, do we?
….for that which we
cannot see
hear
touch
smell
or
taste
when we give
another
a hand
or shoulder
to aid
or comfort
is it the
physical presence
of us
which
heals the soul
or something
else
think about it
this belief
in
what goes around
comes around
has proved
true
in my existence
doe it not
prove true
in
your life
if it does
it demonstrates
there is more
to us
than we think
if that is the case
we should
honor
what
is
A term that is used much in the world of software, object-oriented. By visually representing concepts and ideas as “objects” it is simpler for many to understand.
Our society is turning out the same way. Our minds are tantalized by the “object” of existence. For many, even “God” is represented by way of object, in the form of a cross, image or such.
Our lives and loves are based on objects. Such as an object of desire and the newly discovered love affair with pornography, while it has been around for ages, has never before infiltrated society to the levels it has become.
A car and home are now “objects” representing status.
To the government, we are objects of productivity.
In war, the enemy is now an object of hatred, therefore anything attached to said object is wasted.
The business is now a “model”, which is an object.
Love is an image of a heart, another object.
When we can kiss the object good-bye and see beyond what is, then we may be evolving to what we may become, otherwise we are nothing but objects.
Reality
….trying to figure out why the stuff “they” taught or tell us and what happens doesn’t correspond.
I am not a young person, and I have the same problem.
Fantasy
I believed what seemingly authoritative, intelligent and educated people used to say. Do this and you will achieve that. The ever present carrot in front of the ass, and in this scenario, I am the ass and I keep going for the carrot in an endless scene.
Still Believable?
No more.
I have learned enough in my life to trust my own instincts, and if it no longer sounds “right”, I won’t even consider it.
There is too much garbage fed to the people for it pays to keep the masses ignorant. They are more easily directed this way.
I think the young are discovering this as well.
If not, I hope they are.
one thing
i have learned
about myself
i daresay
others have it too
i ask me
deep within
should i
shouldn’t i
yes
or
no
many times
i did not ask
or when
i did
i ignored
the
answer
which came
from the
depths of
my soul
and
my soul
was
right
I was thinking about this recently.
I’ve angered people, received some chuckles, some compliments and also comments from the dark side.
Some readers got bored and left, and I have new people reading the writings of an older than middle aged nobody.
I had some fantastic conversations and made friends with people whom I wouldn’t recognize if I bumped into them.
What good does it do except allow me to spend time, time that could be better used for other things?
Is this an ego trip for moi?
I am starting to wonder about this.
I’m going to go outside and get some work done for a change.
Maybe I’ll return, maybe not.
The cameras panned the slums of a major metropolitan area and focused on a shack in a back lane where the star interviewed Mr Smith.
“Well Mr Smith, how do you feel being on television? The first person on the Poor and Unfamous?”
“Pretty good, when are you going to give me the twenty five dollars you promised me for this gig? My kids need to eat!” Mr. Smith replied
“Ahem, we’ll get to that later,” The star checked out his reflection in an old mirror hanging from a string, “How do you like being poor?”
“Love it. I’ve been poor all my life, so have my wife and ten children. We are used to starving. It is good for our health, not like those fat rich suckers,” Mr. Smith replied with obvious pride.
“This place is pretty small and dirty, wouldn’t you like to move? It smells,” The star was wishing he could get another series.
“This is home, we love it. Don’t have to pay taxes, no one wants it. When we need to go to the bath room we just walk outside. I don’t need insurance as it isn’t worth anything and no one wants to go near it.”
“That’s interesting. What does your wife and children do?”
“My wife is a professional beggar and she uses the four youngest children to help her get the sympathy donation. She is good at it. She is our biggest source of income. My older kids are working to become gang members or loiterers. One is a little mentally deranged, he wants an education but we can’t afford it so I tell him it’s a waste of time.” Mr. Smith was proud of himself.
“Really?” Without waiting for a reply, the star started to close, “This is the story of Mr. Smith in the slums of Gotham, we will now take you to the poverty stricken areas of Detroit where…”
He was interrupted, “Hey what about that twenty five dollars?”
she vanishes from your bed, in front of your eyes.
“What the f…..”
You look all over and can’t find her. The smell of her is still on you.
You see the bible on her nightstand and then you know. Rapture has taken place.
The event that is foretold when God plucks away the good people before God wastes humanity.
You realize you are still here, she is not.
How can that be?
God took her and left me?
That’s nuts. You hear noises from outside and take a look, there are a bunch of your neighbors and they are all single. Even the bratty kids from next door got raptured.
“God, she cheated on me last year and I only got drunk three times. What’s up with that? Why her and not me? I’m happy for her of course, but I don’t want to fry.”
No answer.
“Damn,” you say to yourself.
“You got that right!” a voice boomed from out there.
That is faith
“What do you see?”
“Piece of paper with a drawing,” I respond.
“What does the drawing represent to you?”
“Something a kid did in school when bored,” I said.
“No, tell me what is the first thing you think of when you see the drawing?”
“Idiocy,” I answered.
“Why idiocy?”
“What do you want me to say? I know what answer you’re looking for. But I ain’t seeing anything here that represents sanity to me. Just a stupid drawing. If you want me to see a bird, show me a picture of a real bird.”
“Do you see a bird?” he asked.
“No, I see a Nazi symbol.”
“Really?”
“No not really. And how many years of university did you have to struggle through to give one of these dumb tests?” I asked
I stood outside tonight and saw a blue glow coming from the woods by the river. It was unusual and there is probably a reasonable explanation for it, but appeared like something only imagination can dream up.
I observed it for a while and let my mind play with it.
A thought came to me about buying an old horse, about as long in horse years as I am in man years. One that could still move around, like me.
I was thinking about riding this old horse and working my way down south, past the borders and man made obstacles and experiencing what the people experienced centuries ago.
If they want to stop me, they can shoot me.
I really could care less. The ride would be worth it.
Imagination.
Soul.
Freedom.
Dignity
Me and the old horse.
Maybe I will.
I’ll see
A talent for making fortunate discoveries while searching for other things.
Have you ever been touched with serendipity?
I have. After I discovered the fortunate, I wondered why I was led to finding it. It was not reason or faith which led me there, was it?
What guides one in the land of chance or is there a guide?
One of the mysteries of life or is it mysterious at all?
The forces of life are slowly opened for those with the will to see.
I saw him attired in a designer suit, getting into his late model Mercedes and he spotted me staring at him with anger and loathing in my eyes. He couldn’t deal with it, avoided my stare and hustled away.
The quack. Leaving my buddy behind while he finished getting a check for thousands knowing full well he was selling feces to a dying man.
He did this with late stage cancer and ALS victims, promising them they will live and walk again. Just pass me the money and I will order the stem cells from France to inject in you to make you whole. That was his line to those without hope.
He made a good living from his PhD.
I have known the Healer. Competent, kind, compassionate and honest. If there was little hope, they would say so. The good PhD.
There are too many quacks out there. Pious bastards with one hand in your wallet, the other around your throat.
There are not enough true Healers.
I lived in that little room all my life and decided to come clean and smell the roses.
Miss Bliss introduced me to the Church of Divine Silliness, CODS for short.
Since being introduced and welcomed to this fine group of people I feel comfortable enough to admit I am bi.
My posts range from pathos to humor, frustration and anger to happiness, which could be construed as bi polar. That is not the only bi I suffer from. I also bi cycle, having two of these wonderful contraptions in my shed which I rarely use but take out on occasion when I feel I won’t suffer from a coronary. Just having them makes me feel healthier. My occupation is related to bi nary stuff. I nary deviate from the bi in my life.
After coming out of the closet, the members decided to keep me on anyway.
We all said “moo” which is our hymn for the moment and we don’t have to pay dues, as we don’t own a building.
All we own is the gift of silliness.
An honest thief who makes no bones about it. He just grabbed seventeen million or so and went for the hills, without violence or going after grandma or grandpa’s retirement savings.
He’s a different breed of cat than the other crooks on Wall Street who steal under the pretext of doing God’s work, like the CEO of Goldman Sachs, or the Credit Card companies who jack up their interest and fees or the banks who charge $35 overdraft fee for a cup of coffee if you happen to be NSF.
This fellow, Tony Musulin, is a real honest to goodness thief.
Go for it Tony. We know you will never rest. If Osama can hide out with the world looking for him all these years and still act and produce movies, I am sure you will find a place to stay.
That is my logic.
The first time in my life I had to get on an airplane, I was five years old and fought tooth and nail to not get on that aluminum tube.
I lost.
For someone who doesn’t like flying, I had to get on those stupid things too many times.
I know my fear is without reason, but I can’t convince the terror part of me that.
One time I was on a very rough flight, bouncing all over hell’s half acre and I was sitting there sweating, convinced I was going to die of a heart attack before we crashed.
I looked to the fellow sitting next to me and I couldn’t believe he looked even more terrified than myself.
“You OK,” I asked.
“This is a bad flight isn’t it?” he squeaked.
I knew he was further down the path of feardom that even I.
“This is nothing,” I tried to sound reassuring, meanwhile my eyes spotted the nervous looks on the stewardesses faces, and I thought to myself, who are you kidding? You’re going to die!
“Naw, these babies are built to take it. Air Force Colonel I knew told me that,” I added, looking at him to see if my words had any effect, they seemed to, for him. Meanwhile my mind was telling me, it’s over.
We managed a landing that mimicked a hop scotch game and the pilots, who didn’t have laptops to play with in those days, got a standing ovation.
Later I wondered why I didn’t scream and demand a parachute. As scared as I was, somebody needed calm. Sometimes, I surprise myself.
have you ever heard
someone laughing
and you caught it
they laughed
you giggled
they laughed
your tummy is sore
from
laughter
you can’t stop
you don’t even know
why you are laughing
other than hearing
the laughter
of another
This summer I picked up a board to see the crown of the board and I stepped back into a hole and woke to a huge pain and blood on the back of my head. Wondering where I was, then getting it, but not knowing how I tasted ground….I remembered;
A friend in grade school wrecked his bike and had a concussion.
A boy got encephalitis. he was very smart, then he became a zombi, walking around town, but not walking too far before returning to his home.
A child that had been damaged, probably thrown against a wall, ran around the neighborhood for about 6 months or so. An eternity.
The really slow kids in my class. One that wet his pants in 1st and 2nd grade almost every day, because he was scared to say he had to pee, he had two older sisters, that would smoke with their cousins behind the school.
.
We’ll call it the fourth dimension:
Time
Ignore the dimension of who I am
explore the dimension, time
How old are you when you wake up from your dream?
In this house, I have lived with three different bedrooms and two bathrooms. there were times when I lived with an outhouse.
grinding stream
life
never a smooth flow
although i
wish it so
loves lost
loves found
vanishing
accepting
finding
instigating
stepping beyond
what is right
sinking into the abyss
saved from certain…….
to float again
and
again
i try
fail
try again
bastard am i
loved am i
i love too
sometimes
not enough
sometimes
too much
maalstroom
We believe that money has value, it only has value because we believe it, it is part of the myth of economics. We believe that social class exists and due to your position in that class, you are ranked in the eyes of others as to your worth as a person.
When I think of how my own mythology evolved, I can appreciate it for its use in defining my world.
When I think of physical reality, i have developed myths to help with my understanding of atoms and molecules, and I have fantasies about subatomic particles appearing and disappearing according to some concept that I have not created in my mythology.
We could consider that we get angry when reality and our mythology, or our fantasy or our expectations are not the same.
Often the storytelling mythology gives us an understanding of the world that we would otherwise fail to get……bouzouki.
A smile in the morning can make another person’s day.
Offering a hand when needed does not require much effort, but will make the difference to another.
Saying “I understand” instead of “You should” carries much weight.
Taking time to listen, instead of speaking, makes a world of difference.
Not getting upset because someone forgot to put the juice back in the fridge the night before is key.
It is the little things that can make life bearable and enjoyable.
Years ago I was in sales and covered a territory that covered two and one half provinces, requiring me to be on the road three weeks of the month.
One morning I was pressed for time and decided to take a short cut, one I never had traveled before. I was driving a black Grand Prix SJ, with honeycomb wheels with 400 hundred cubic inches of power. I was dressed in a three-piece black suit.
I turned unto a gravel road spanning the distance between two highways. On the south was a large industrial complex. As I made my way east I noticed a group of thirty or forty men standing in the middle of the road I was on.
This was a little unusual and as I approached I noticed the picket signs. I slowed down and finally was forced to stop, for they were not moving. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed one of the men had a baseball bat and the expressions were definitely not one of welcome.
The hair at the nape of my neck rose.
I lowered the passenger window slightly for us to communicate, thank God for power windows. There was no way I was going to lower my window, it would have been too easy to pull me out. I decided then and there, it would be them or me if this encounter turned ugly, for I had one foot on the brake and one on the gas pedal and I was prepared to unleash the power through this mass of humanity if need be.
“Who are you and what are you doing here!” A voice demanded of me.
I heard “scab” being voiced along the perimeter of the group.
“I’m taking a short cut, you gonna let me by or what?”
They consulted among themselves, the longer this was taking, the more nervous I was getting.
“Hey, look at his plate, he’s not from here!”
“OK, you can go!”
I passed.
Upon reflection, it occurred to me how close we all came to someone getting hurt or losing a life. I promised myself I would never walk a picket line or join a union. If it ever got to the point where my job was causing me so much misery, I would walk away and find another one.
….. it happened a few times in my life, but the first time was by way of a medical term known as “concussion”.
I was about eleven or twelve years old and I had no clue where I was. It smelled different from my home and the room was not mine. I was alone if I remember correctly.
I sat up and the pain from my head and nose was excruciating, so I lay down again. I was in a hospital.
To this day, I have no memory of the 24 to 48 hour period before waking. It is a strange experience to say the least, after all, if you black out from drinking too much alcohol you remember the start of the binge. I couldn’t remember waking up and going to school the day it happened.
They told me later they think it occurred while I was playing football and was tackled, my head hitting a stone on a field and the opposing players jumping on me to make sure the tackle was a good one. We never wore helmets in those days for anything.
They say I acted a little weird after that, asking people where I lived and not being aware of much.
I still don’t know how I got to the hospital or who took me and I never thought to ask.
As I lay there a nurse came in and massaged me, one of the most soothing experiences of my life.
A day later when I arrived home, I was pretty much useless as my head hurt every time I attempted to raise my head. We didn’t have much coin, so my father stuck a nail in a car battery and wired it to a transistor radio so I would have something to keep me occupied.
The principal of the school came to visit me a few times. I liked him as he played accordion for a popular band in those days as well as attending to the responsibilities of his vocation. He came to visit because he cared, not because he was scared of a law suit.
Have you ever heard the expression “old soul”?
We are all old souls aren’t we?
For the essence of life is passed on from generation to generation and never stops with those who are alive and having children to pass the seed of life to, or the soul along to.
We may not think of it in these terms very often, but without the passing of life from mother and father to child, we would not exist and neither would the vast majority of life forms on this planet.
How this started is the stuff of imagination as we truly do not know for certain. We do know that certain characteristics are passed on from one generation to the next depending on the mix of the mother and father, which insures there is always the individuality of the newly arrived.
We are connected to the past by the soul that is passed forward to us. We are connected to the future by the passing of life from us to our children.
We are eternal.
It is amazing how this world and life works.
Myths are wonderful. They lead imagination to dwell on the possibilities, what ifs, and hopes of the human species.
They teach and provide comfort during those times when comfort is needed.
A place to focus the mind when in the midst of insanity, like the eye of a hurricane. The myth separates us from all other life forms. Those who are gifted in the art of story telling weave the myth, enticing the listener deeper into the unfolding journey, and many come to believe.
The believers of myths design their lives around the tale and continue stepping on the road of reality, which is of itself a myth.
My poor little brain has been deluged by myths and is leery of them, yet my mind still likes the peace of the eye of the hurricane and being able to stretch my hand out to inspiration and saying welcome.
What am I to do? Without the myths with which I am so familiar and how will I balance the other myth called reality?
Another myth formed in my mind, the greatest myth of all time, because to me, it is true.
Miss Bliss from blissbait fame has presented myself with the Ra Award, which will be passed on in seven days to a blog deserving of this one of a kind award. I thank Miss Bliss from the bottom of my heart, for to be a recipient of this award with the million kisses, joy and happiness that is associated with it, will guarantee my ultimate position on Cloud Nine.
This award originated with it’s creator Mr. Purple Hatter, who Miss Bliss describes as “Maker of Awards Many and Delightful! “
Thank you Mr Purple Hatter for designing this fine award, and for those of you who would like to know more, the following is a little history lesson on Ra.
To the ancient Egyptians, Ra was the ruler of the heavens. He was the god of the sun, the bringer of light, and patron to the pharaohs. According to legend, the sun travels the skies as Ra drives his chariot through the heavens. Although he originally was associated only with the midday sun, as time went by, Ra became connected to the sun’s presence all day long. He was the commander of not only the sky, but the earth and the underworld as well.
Ra is nearly always portrayed with a solar disc above his head, and often takes on the aspect of a falcon. Ra is different from most Egyptian gods. Other than Osiris, nearly all deities of Egypt are tied to the earth. Ra, however, is strictly a celestial god. It is from his position in the sky that he is able to watch over his independent (and often unruly) children. On earth, Horus rules as Ra’s proxy.
For people in ancient Egypt, the sun was a source of life. It was power and energy, light and warmth. It was what made the crops grow each season, so it is no surprise that the cult of Ra had immense power and was widespread. By the time of around the fourth dynasty, the pharaohs themselves were seen as incarnations of Ra, thus giving them absolute power. Many a king build a temple or pyramid in his honor – after all, keeping Ra happy virtually guaranteed a long and prosperous reign as pharaoh.
When the Roman Empire embraced Christianity, the residents of Egypt rather abruptly abandoned their old gods, and the cult of Ra vanished into the history books. Today, there are some Egyptian reconstructionists, or followers of Kemeticism, who still honor Ra as the supreme god of the sun.
THIS AWARD IS FOR ALL THAT WILL PASS IT ON TO BRING SUNSHINE INTO ANOTHER PERSONS LIFE FOR ONE DAY.
THIS AWARD IS A TOKEN OF PROMISE TO LOOK OVER ANOTHER ONES BLOG AS LONG AS YOU YOURSELF IS BLOGGING. BE WISE IN WHO YOU CHOOSE TO RECEIVE THIS AWARD.
It was a large puppy for the mother, she is a tiny Griffin.
The only pup she had, which is unusual as most dogs give litters.
The pup died at birth, so I wrapped it up in a cloth, walked into the night with a broken shovel and buried her near a raspberry bush in the garden.
I was thinking, ashes to ashes, dust to…..
I went back into the house and the mother was not herself. She was aware her young was no more. Animals have taught me a lot these past few years. They too have emotions. We had a few other puppies who had just started eating from a bowl as their mother ran out of milk and it was time. We put the puppies next to the grieving Griffin.
Last time I looked, the puppies were feeding from the Griffin. She was laying there treating them as her own.
C’est La Vie
…..doesn’t mean a thing to me.
I do not know any of them personally. I do know they pull their pants on much the same way I do. They all have fatter wallets and their groupies fall over themselves trying to outdo one another by pleasing the powerful.
You see, I am more powerful than all of them.
I have nothing to lose. I’ve been on the bottom more than once and worked my way back up and can do it again.
I don’t care about the things they may care about.
I care about people, and they are people too. No more, no less.
If Forbes or anyone else considers them powerful, that is OK by me.
To me, they are just human beings. They will die just like me and their power won’t make a bit of difference when it is time to go, just like me.
this door is crafted by miss bliss
this is the door
everyone knows of
and
no one dares speak of
it is the doorway to life
the problem being
no one knows
what’s on the other side
i have a little secret
only a few know
the door reads your heart
and presents you
with what is in you
if your heart is pure
bliss awaits
on the other side
if your heart is perfection not
you may find
a mud puddle or two
you never know
what the door
will open to
but you will know
it is you
I don’t always know what’s best, I am human.
However, in observing and experiencing life and people, I do know how I do not want to be.
I do not want to be a miserable old crank, making other people’s lives a chore every time they see me.
I do not want to be a cold hearted bastard whose only motivation is what is good for me.
I do not want do be a drunk stumbling my way to death’s door.
I do not want to be a man my children are ashamed of
What I did in my past, good or bad, helped make me what I am today. It is me how I am that is important to me. Not for selfish reasons, for reasons beyond self.
In determining what I don’t want to be, it helps me find the person I want to be.
I was sitting in a bar next to a genuine Navajo Chief who happened to have a Southern California beauty sitting on each side of him.
I was by myself. He happened to be speaking fairly loudly and I had no trouble whatsoever hearing his conversation, which happened to very self serving in respect to his prowess in sports activities. It was obvious he was leaving no stone unturned in respect to impressing the ladies.
Make no mistake, he looked like he could be a mean customer when it came to defending himself.
After a while, I couldn’t help but smile at his stories, they were too far out there based on my experience. The woman looked like they were in idol of him, which made it even more ludicrous to my mind.
He looked up and saw me smiling, went back to his conversation and looked at me again. This time daggers were coming out of his eyes and he lowered his voice, “What you grinning at?”
I should’ve known better.
“You.”
Then I started laughing.
For a moment, I thought he and I were going to trade blows.
Our eyes connected. He realized then why I was smiling. He knew, I knew.
We bought each other a round and got along fine.
A smile never hurt anyone
….or the first supersonic plane or a skyscraper or a mile long bridge.
Locomotives and cars existed long before Intel and Microsoft.
People listened to music in the comfort of their homes and watched television long before I-Pod.
Yes, technology makes things quicker and more convenient now.
Until, as in Brazil, the power goes off.
bouzouki goes on to say…..
I thought I lost my comment on music, and decided that it should be fleeting, just like music.
This, however, is actually the background, the taken-for-granted world, where you can flush the toilet, turn on a light, go to the grocery store and buy what you want. Thinking without a computer may need some reconstruction, a reconnection to a different framework.
You have had a number of interesting posts, while I have had a tired body, with bent knees, holding windows until they are secure. My fingers ache and the chill lasts a little longer each day.
I lived for four years without water coming from a tap, without electricity for two years, without being entertained, but entertaining myself. I wonder how we will respond to chronic unemployment, limited access to travel because it is too hard to meet the requirements to get on the plane, or we can’t make or buy new toys this year.
I recommend apple trees, squeezing the apples, making cider, letting it set and tasting the brewed liquid. Lets keep the honey bees alive, The insects matter more than most people know.
The Harper’s index says that 94% of all blogs haven’t been updated in four months. So keep on making me think
“They” say there is no inflation.
Who are they kidding?
Do these people who say that buy gasoline or pay utilities or taxes or go grocery shopping or pay over twenty percent interest for credit?
I don’t know, it seems the cost of living is much higher than a few years ago, and salaries haven’t grown.
While the green back bounces up and down like a yo yo and Wall Street is cheering again, they see a bull that doesn’t exist. Companies are recording profits, smiling and showing people the door.
We can do without the labor or revenue they say, we’ll cut corners to survive. See how smart we are?
As people move to tents and look at the homes they once lived in, standing forlorn and alone.
They tell us this is the way it will be and they need us to spend more. Buy stuff to keep the people who are showing us the door to stay alive. Our governments are helping those who show us the door stay healthy, in the hopes they will invite a few back in.
To me this is not the recipe for success.
For technology and foreign labor will replace jobs lost, forever more.
There has to be another way to survive, without Wall Street or Government at the core.
I can feel that son of a bitch in my soul
Just mixin’ it up, dark and fierce.
The wind is startin’ to howl in this dimension
We call now.
We thought we be in control, but no.
We lost it, never had it.
Just thought we did.
Yeah, we had it by the tail, we did.
‘Til it turned and stared us in the face
And said, “no more”.
Mankind will be done soon enuff.
While the wind blasts dry the land
We wait for the storm
i am not real
i am the creation
of another
borrowed for
purposes
unknown
the fantasy fits well
with me
the name belongs to one
without a chest
and he
who runs from that
which is real
ichabod is not a man
he is what a man feels
a reminder to self
as he walks beside the still waters
of life
suddenly the stillness is gone
peace turns to a wind whipped frenzy
mountains of water barreling on shore
ichabod is but a man
who understands
there is much more
than he
it gently caresses
our skin
whispers in our ears
letting us know
we are not alone
sun glows
bathes us in radiance
warming our skin
letting us know
we are not alone
rain falls
soaking us with dew
letting us know
we are not alone
eyes sparkle
taking us in
letting us know
we are not alone
An old friend of mine, a concert pianist and great blues man told me for anything to sound like music, it has to be mathematically correct.
I remember watching this movie decades ago, and I don’t think it broke any records, but the scene with the duel is a good one and it appears mathematically correct
Bouzouki, it may come close to the radioactive blues
I was thinking about this. Even in the poorest nations that depend on charitable donations to survive, their survival depends on money.
One century ago, people could fish, hunt or forage for food. If you lived near a source of fresh water, you could drink for nothing.
Now you need a license to fish, hunt or trap. If you find food growing in a field or hanging from a tree, it is considered stealing if you help yourself.
There used to be 60 to 80 million buffalo roaming the prairies of North America. They were slaughtered for….money.
Makes you wonder doesn’t it? Now Goldman Sachs claims it is doing god’s work, yet its business is money. I don’t think we came into this world with cash or a debit card in our little fists.
I think it is about time there is a service for people who left churches, synagogues and mosques or for those who have been excommunicated.
They all deserve one last shot at it, even if their human counterparts have judged them to be not worthy.
For a paltry fee I will speak to God on their behalf.
The following services will be provided :
Due to the nature of God, sometimes mornings can be a pain. It is not always possible to grant requests. I have a success rating of 66.6%. For those of you who fall into the 33.3% failure zone, tough.
Anyway, I am your last chance, especially for the excommunicated, shunned, back sliders, heathen in this world, for your other God agents won’t touch you with a ten foot pole.
Reminds me of an ad I saw once for someone to take care of your pet after you are raptured. The gist of it was that the man was an atheist and that he understood from reading the bible that animals would not be raptured and would have to live through the end times. Therefore he was selling rapture insurance for the pets of Christians, promising to take care of the animals once they were raptured and no one was left to do it. 100 dollars starts you up, and then a monthly retainer of 20 dollars per month until you are raptured…..source writerdood
There was a forty five gallon barrel at the end of my driveway I would keep trash for the garbage pickup people to dispense with.
Somebody stole it.
A day later I read with interest the following headline, “Recession’s good news: Cities see burglaries fall”
Last weekend I read another article that stated suicides were on the rise. People did not know how to cope after losing all their posessions and not having an income.
Goes to show you where priorities are, doesn’t it?
To those people who stole my garbage can, enjoy it. I hope it serves its purpose well.
Just don’t kill yourself because you took something that was not yours as you couldn’t afford to buy one.
I don’t wish that on anyone. A garbage can is just that, an object, a possession.
A life is a little more important, don’t you think?
When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” I looked and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.
It is not difficult understanding the lure of scripture for many people. Reading the above paragraph and relating it to the news of today and the last century, it is compelling as the numbers on this earth aren’t that far off. The UN recently reported over a billion people are going hungry on this planet. That is not far off the fourth of the earth as mentioned in the passage above.
I have observed poverty in my life. Not the poverty of rich countries, as that has no relationship to poverty in poor countries.
Most people in the developed nations would be sick if they had to live in one of these hell holes for a few days. Maybe that is what is required to make social change that benefits the all, and not just the few.
That won’t happen and is the premise for the Acopolypse, a self fullfilling prophesy.
The Pale rider is one of four metaphors.
It is the one we are witnessing drawing close to us.
It appears everyone is doing God’s work these days. From the bowels of the Vatican, the cities of Jerusalem and Mecca, to Wall Street, everyone is getting a cut of God’s action.
However, this new worker division for God is the best paying one.
The chief executive of Goldman Sachs, which has attracted widespread media attention over the size of its staff bonuses, believes banks serve a social purpose and are doing “God’s work.”
“We help companies to grow by helping them to raise capital. Companies that grow create wealth. This, in turn, allows people to have jobs that create more growth and more wealth. We have a social purpose,” he told the paper.
The dominant Wall Street bank posted third-quarter earnings of $3 billion and plans to hand out more than $20 billion in year-end bonuses…..source reuters.com.
Funny part about all of this, with all the people claiming to be doing God’s work, I do not see evidence of God in any of this.
If they are doing God’s work, I wish they would publicize God’s telephone number as I would like to have a conversation with their boss.
The murders in Fort Hood may do to the military what 9/11 did to the world.
Regardless of a soldier’s character or intent, I think it is human nature for people to be suspicious of a perceived enemy, in this case, anyone who follows Islam and serves in the military.
Christian soldiers are no less suspect.
How can someone follow one of the Abrahamic religions, profess to love God and work in a profession which is ultimately designed to take life, whether in defense or not?
That is a war within itself. Somewhere along the line something must be compromised or justified within self in order to continue with the faith or as a soldier.
Meanwhile, the brothers in arms will look at the religious and wonder whether they will be soldiers when the time is required.
It’s in the news again, abortion.
The emotions are high on both sides of this issue and I understand both arguments.
I am not a woman. I don’t have to carry a baby for nine months, suffer the agony and pain and then have to deal with nurturing a child after he or she is born.
For me religion has nothing to do with it.
Something else does.
I can’t pass judgment, it is not my body.
For some reason, deep inside of me, there is something that tells me I couldn’t have anything to do with it. Is it compassion, ignorance or something else?
It would be much simpler if people took precautions before jumping into bed with one another. This will always be a real problem for people pro and con.
Then again, is war any less of a travesty or watching one billion people go hungry on this planet?
There are many issues facing people in this life. I do not think we are dealing with all of them the way we should.
Not because of what may be, but what is.
I have lived over half century, been through a few recessions and seen some things happen in my life. I am no different than most my age and there are quite a few of us around.
For some reason it appears the important stuff they aren’t publicizing anymore, they focus on what they think people want to read, instead of the stuff that is newsworthy.
It is almost as if the media is being manipulated.
I read an article by Dr. Doom today. He accurately forecast most everything that happened in 2007 and 2008, and started getting out of his “Doom” role a few months back and now is warning the world about the Mother of Carry Trades.
Being a non investor layman, I am seeing what he is describing happening with huge currency flows from commodities, to stocks, to currency, as if it didn’t know where to go and park for a while, as no place was secure.
Many companies beat profit expectations but in most cases the overall revenue is down. Unemployment is rising faster than expected, hitting 10.2% and I am reading more lay off notices. not only in America. but abroad.
No one mentions what technology has to do with all of this. I think that we have built a robotics world efficient enough to replace many occupations and now we are largely servicing one another and have job titles no one understands. Who needs them to survive?
It is not about optimism or pessimism, it is about reality. Maybe I’m wrong, I hope I am for the benefit of those who may suffer.
China took another stab at the US over the weekend in respect to the weakening dollar and told Uncle Sam to get its fiscal house in order. When the US currency drops, so does the value of China’s investments in the US.
After what happened when Wall Street buckled to its knees, I don’t think the Chinese will appreciate their investments disappearing in front of their noses.
No, I don’t understand this at all. Banks are getting money for next to nothing and loans are costing a lot more.
Maybe I should just not try to understand this. After all it isn’t doing me any good being right about the future, nothing I can do about it anyway.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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?
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.
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?
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.
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 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.
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.
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
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
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?
…….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.
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.
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 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.
I and many others criticize our governments frequently, but as compared to many nations and regimes there is a lot of good.
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
“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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 readychildren 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 behindtwo men walking up a hill
one disappears the other’s left standing still
i wish we’d all been readyman and wife asleep in bed
she hears a noise and turns her head he’s gone
i wish we’d all been readythere’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 behindWTF???!!! 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”.
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?
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?
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
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
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.
“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.
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 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 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.
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.”
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.
…..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
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
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?
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
….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?”
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?
…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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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 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!”
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
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?
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.
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.
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.
“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?
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
.
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.
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
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 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
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
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?
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.
….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.
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?
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.
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?
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?
….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.
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?
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.
“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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!”
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.
…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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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
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.”
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?
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.
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
“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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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”
Over 1 Billion don’t have enough to eat
The true face of “Collateral” damage
Wall Street’s real Flag
We the voters
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.
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.
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.
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!”
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”
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.
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.
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
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
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
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.
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?
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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 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.
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.
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
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.
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
Symbol representing wall street
The Slave
Government by the people for the people
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.
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
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
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?
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
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 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
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 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.
“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.”
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.
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
“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.
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 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.
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.
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
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?
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.
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
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 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?
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
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
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.
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
But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
The words are said to have been spoken by Jesus Christ, a man who the people pictured above claim leads them.
I wonder.
Those poor people in other lands who are killed, wounded, lose property all because they happen to be living where they are living and do not look or pray to the same effigy as the one that is prayed to in North America.:)
It is early in the season and it appears we are in for a long cold winter, this may be another rebuttal to the Global Warming people as the last few winters were colder than normal as well.
This past summer was colder than normal by three degrees.
It looked pretty, I have to admit, the white settled on the green grass and trees. The leaves have not changed color and fallen off yet.
Instead of being grumpy and complaining about another long vigil in a cold land, I looked at it all and enjoyed.
What else are you going to do?
It isn’t going to look good encouraging wars or occupying nations when you have this award to live up to, will it?
When you really haven’t earned the right to get the prize, but have been awarded it, that is a psychological goal to maintain.
It is a means to hopefully insure there may not be other wars started by the Commander in Chief, as the last one started three wars with well over 100,000 civilian deaths attributed to his administration.
Let us hope, Obama can live up to the award.
Most of us are familiar or have heard of the Christian Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
There is another trinity, good, evil and human nature.
I was outside thinking about a comment bouzouki made, “Instead of trying to force a change that is beyond our reach, I think that working on making our lives richer in small ways is what matters.”
I understand why this may not sound relevant to the good, evil and human nature trinity, but it does. Sometimes I allow myself to be influenced by what goes on in the world, I rail against it, and it really has no effect on me pro or con and even if it did, I could not do a damn thing to change it.
Like so many things in life, there is the good and the evil at odds with each other, each in my mind, many times engaged in battle.
Then there is human nature which gets to referee these battles and decides to call it a draw, select a winner or shuts down the match altogether.
All three are in my system and I relate to it more than the other Trinity as these I deal with, the other I don’t understand.
Congress is considering making assaults on gays a hate crime.
I don’t get it.
Assault is assault. Anyone battering another human being should be charged and dealt with according to the law. Why should it make a difference for a gay to be assaulted than a man beating his wife to death? She is a human too.
As far as I am concerned, all men are created equal, and that includes women and children.
It doesn’t matter whether they are gay, straight, black, red, yellow, white, or purple with pink polka dots.
It doesn’t matter if they are Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Atheist, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim or of any other faith.
All equal.
People do not assault or murder anyone because they love them.
No wonder this world is such a mess.
My mom and I were having a conversation this year about the Second World War.
My mother and father were teenagers in occupied Holland. She still covers her ears and is frightened in a thunderstorm as it brings back memories. She had to evacuate a train strafed by German fighter planes, her brother died in a prisoner of war camp in Indonesia, and her father died due to the stress of being a locomotive engineer.
She witnessed the roundups of Jews and others who the Germans were intent on capturing and my parents knew what hunger felt like.
Yet there were bright spots.
“We were closer,” she said. “People showed their best in times like those. It made you feel good when those times happened.”
We are probably going through another world upheaval which may or may not culminate in a war, if not, there are plenty of people feeling hardships now.
However, it must be the same for them as it was for my parents, I would think.
It’s not all bad.
I never saw the old Survivor series, but I heard they dropped off groups of people in uninhabited places with very little equipment or supplies in order to test their survival skills.
They are going to do something different now. They will parachute groups of people into the major financial centers of the world, London, New York and Somalia, without credit cards, wall mounted degrees and a ten dollar bill each.
We’ll see who comes out the winner.
Kelso’s Nuts wrote a post about the current goings on in the world. The last line asked, “how much money has the Federal Reserve CREATED?”
The article can be found at Editorials from Hell’s Leading Newspaper.
I was curious, so when in doubt, tear down the wall.
Most people will do many things to get traffic in the hope that it will bring readers.
I was getting good traffic and a few posts were getting a lot of attention, some I wrote a long time ago, but no comments pro or con.
I checked what was prompting this interest and it was images I had used on those particular posts. People did what I did, grabbed them from Google or linked to them. The blog had nothing to do with it.
So I deleted the images to see if my blog was of interest on its own.
After all, why bother posting, if no one likes it or is interested in it, right?
So I waited.
The first week, my numbers actually increased, then they went down for a period of two weeks and are now rising again.
It gives me a better picture of what this is about.
I don’t know why so many of us do this. In my case it is not ego, I don’t think. There are many out there who would blow me out the door in writing skills or conclusions based on research.
However, for me it is a pastime I enjoy, as I assume others do.
Yet, being a public forum and even though I claim ego isn’t involved, it is discouraging when writing and no one reads it.
Almost like telling you by silence that your thoughts don’t matter at all, and if your thoughts don’t, what about you.
I was never in Sane before. I used to live around its borders, in a place called Sane.
Now I observe the other people out of Sane who claim they are Sane as they are not in Sane.
That can’t be true as I am in it.
Life is so much more practical being in Sane rather than Sane.
Nothing has to make sense here.
People who are not in Sane, try to make sense of Sane, but Sane has no direction.
While the people living in Sanity, another word for Sane, are trying to define “common” sense, I live in a place where there is no sense at all which is common to all of us.
That is why the inhabitants of in Sane are the audience of those who live out of Sane.
If the above doesn’t twist your brain, I don’t know what will
The only thing that screwed everything up was the distribution of scriptures to people.
They were intended for the undersea mammals, whales and dolphins, to read to give them hope.
That is what we were in out past lives and it makes so much more sense. When the mammals of the deep swim underwater, it is no fun. They have to come up for air and raise kids with all kinds of natural enemies floating around to get them.
From algae to sharks to octopuses and funny things with big eyes. When they come to the surface there is the danger of harpoons and nets. The propellers of those big ships and submarines have killed a few too.
The story has it if they are good, they will go to a place called Heaven above and live in a mansion, as they have no shelter where they live.
Imagine them evolving into people.
They no longer have to come to the surface to breath, can walk around and have homes. There are new predators of course, as life wouldn’t be interesting without them, but they are more civilized in a wierd way.
We are the Heaven for the beings beneath the sea.
The dispatch office was crowded and the grumbling was fierce. For those of you with an education, you were lied to. It wasn’t the ovaries and sperm that does it, it was the stork that carried you home.
“I’m getting tired of this nonsense,” Harry yelled.
“I carried an eighteen pounder the other night, nearly ripped my wings off,” Joe replied as all the other storks nodded their heads in quiet ascent.
“What about that octo mommy? She kept eight of us busy and we had to pull in a double shift. What about my wife and kids?” demanded Sam.
“Never mind that, I am getting more calls from women who should be getting ready for the grave, never mind having kids,” George yelled.
“What’s up with that?” asked Stan.
“They invented fertilization drugs and now have sperm frozen for old bags,” replied Harry.
“We didn’t get a raise in a generation!”
“What! Do they want us to work for peanuts?” Sam demanded.
“I don’t eat peanuts,” Manuel countered.
“Neither do the rest of us,” Oscar replied.
“We delivered so many of those babies, they grew up and screwed up our food supplies. How many of you had a decent herring lately?”
Their collective heads shook back and forth in unison.
“Let’s go on strike!” someone in the back yelled.
They all agreed to go on strike.
As they were flying to their homes, Sam yelled at George. “Hey George, what does strike mean?”
“I don’t know,” George answered, “It sounded good so I voted for it.”
Ben Franklin looked over his bifocals at the other men seated around the table and said, “Thank you gentlemen, I think we’ve done it. This is an incredibly decent document and should withstand the test of time as long as the fools abide by and not alter it.”
Jefferson replied, “Maybe we can prevent a modification.”
Ears perked up around the room.
“How?” George Washington wondered aloud.
“Let’s throw in something which is harmless enough, a red herring as it were. Keep them from focusing on changing anything else.”
“Brilliant idea,” quipped Hamilton.
“What will it be?” queried John Adams.
“Pursuit of happiness,” John Jay laughed.
James Madison asked, “How do you define happiness?”
Jay smiled, “My point exactly.”
“Damn, that is a stroke of genius John. This will be something that will protect the important resolutions in this document,” Franklin smiled and inserted the words which have befuddled the nation since it’s inception centuries ago.
There is a place I visit which is different in a fun kind of way.
The place is called bliss bait.
If you are up to having your spirits lifted
And see a little art
when a smile would
make your day
visit miss bliss
you’ll feel welcome
in a good kind of way
the wind was cold tonight and the clouds out.
I look up at the sky, and wondered aloud.
Why?
I looked down and saw our globe
in my mind
I sees the images of the few
living in luxury in wide open homes
and my thoughts encompass
those who do not have
anything
no food, shelter, protection or love
from those up high
i realize I am but a step away
from those
who do not have
and wonder
what led us to this
situation
on planet earth
what will an alien think
when passing by?
and see the workings
of mankind
where so many
struggle to survive
and hear the things
we say to those
who have no hope
“get an education” the wealthy cry
“with what?” the poor reply
“go and work you lazy bums!’
“There is no work.”
“Get a new government, that’s the problem”
“They have the guns, what are we to do?”
“Pray to God, He’ll see you through.”
“Why, God has never helped us.”
“You people are hopeless, you need to be like us.”
“Why don’t you try and be like us?” was the last cry.
…He was the father of young girls and the lowest paid at the job.
“You’re being let go, we cannot afford you anymore,” he was told.
“But my wife and children, how will I feed them?” he cried.
“We’re sorry, that is the way it is.”
He stumbled out the door, not knowing what to do. He jumped on a tractor and drove into a tree which held thousands of bees. He died almost immediately from the attack.
He was the only one that knew of the bees in the tree.
The company that laid him off is now required to compensate the worker’s family for this tragedy as he was at work and still on the job when this occurred.
This was how the story was told to me.
I noticed an article this morning about an upcoming Supreme Court case,
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is taking up a long-running legal fight over a cross honoring World War I soldiers that has stood for 75 years on public land in a remote part of California.
The cross, on an outcrop known as Sunrise Rock in the Mojave National Preserve, has been covered in plywood for the past several years following federal court rulings that it violates the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment prohibition against government endorsement of religion.
The justices were to hear arguments Wednesday in a case the court could use to make an important statement about its view of the separation of church and state. The Obama administration is defending the presence of the cross, which court papers describe as being 5 to 8 feet tall.
A former National Park Service employee, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, sued to have the cross removed or covered after the agency refused to allow erection of a Buddhist memorial nearby. Frank Buono describes himself as a practicing Catholic who has no objection to religious symbols, but he took issue with the government’s decision to allow the display of only the Christian symbol….source foxnews.com
I can understand how both sides are thinking in this case and for many people, this will be a heated debate.
Yet I wonder at those who symbolize the man they call Jesus and his death as they all hold the Bible to be true and dear.
Why do I wonder?
Their rule book and foundation makes it very clear as the Ten Commandments as issued by Moses says, “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.”
Graven image is defined as an idol or fetish carved in wood or stone.
It is a contradiction, the cross and these words, is it not?
In front of a mountain, in the desert, on the prairies, by the ocean, next to a river, near woods, in cities, in villages and out in the country. I have lived in a boat, hotel and homes in four countries to date.
I watched a tarantula climb down my door and chased a fiddle back spider from my living room. I slept within six inches of a black widow and once opened my eyes on a park bench to see a skunk wandering a few inches from where I slept. I was in the wild with moose, bear and deer. I petted cattle and dogs were always near.
I was there when they attracted a swarm of bees to a hive and sat on a chicken coop at three in the morning with a rifle waiting for the hunter of the feathered ones. The geese walked a few feet from my door and the owl sat on the pole watching my home.
I stood face to face, looking at a lioness which visited me and met up with a great dane when looking for a pony that ran away from home.
I have felt the cold wind blow at fifty below and suffered in 120 + degrees in the desert sun.
I have experienced being locked in a cell with no natural light and felt humbled by the experience of being alone in a place no one called home in the vast expanses of our lands.
I have experienced deja vu and seen things there are no explanations to.
My friends, this is all totally true and not the stuff of make believe or Hollywood’s tube.
I watched the newborn arrive and a baby smile.
My day is not yet done, there is much more I feel will come.
Have a fantastic day
I was curious and I haven’t heard of it being done before so I thought I would try it. Finding the hatch was not so difficult, now that I was intent on performing this. It had never been opened before so it was covered with dust.
Once I pulled it open I noted a ladder positioned so I could climb down below. I stepped on a rung and started my journey.
There was a humming sound from all the activity. everything was working in conjunction, nerve center is a good word for it.
There was light so I could see, but where it came from or what caused it, I had no clue. There were passages leading to one area or another. I “felt” what each area was for. My memory banks were where I expected them to be. A beating came from my emotion center and a loud steady noise erupted from my thinking department.
I smelled the aroma of perfume coming from the attraction area and noticed that the communication system was resting for the evening.
I passed the recycling area where the garbage was stored and came upon the coordination center that enabled me to function in this world of ours.
I noticed something apart from all of this. I walked around in amazement and wonder. It was like nothing else in this brain of mine, something unexpected.
I discovered the ignition switch of life and connected to it was the plasma unit which communicated with the source of inspiration and realization.
It was where it started and how it keeps things going.
I smiled to myself when I discovered this and realized I had known all along what made me tick.
I had the pleasure of participating in a little group fantasy at blissbait’s place. Six of us participated on a short story, not knowing where it was going or how it would end.
It was started by mz bliss with her swallowing the sun. Then someone would pick up the story where the other left off and go in whatever direction he or she pleased.
It is an interesting experiment and quite a bit of fun to play with.
It’s a lot like life, the compilation of this story is. It seems like someone is picking up where the other leaves off. We live in a fantasy land, but are many times too self absorbed in our own lives to realize this.
Imagine never having lived on the planet earth, being born and living in a controlled environment such as a space ship all your life. Then you read or watch a movie about what life is like on this planet of ours. The things we see, feel, hear, smell and taste, the spectrum is awesome.
Would you believe it?
I can honestly admit that I have never slept with a virgin.
Actually, I was thankful for this as I didn’t want the responsibility of being the first for anyone.
Plastered in the news with the same vigor as Michael Jackson’s passing is the David Letterman indiscretion, which is really not a scandal and I do not know why so many people are obsessing about it.
In some cultures, this is accepted and normal behavior for a man, to have a few concubines or wives.
We have testosterone and estrogen. They create lust. That is why I never slept with a virgin, there were not many around.
If a wife or significant other is emotionally or physically hurt by a partner’s indiscretions, it should be kept private, so they can decide what to do their lives.
We are not here to judge.
The people involved have to live with the fallout. I do not see any good purpose in chastising a human before the world or creating a public opinion so miserable that reconciliation becomes another word for impossible.
I communicate with a dead person on occasion, his name is Marstead.
I have discovered that he has a pretty good handle on life and has a way of putting across his thoughts that is a pleasure to read.
Not bad for a dead guy.
I’m no angel, never pretended I was.
I, like most adults on this world, tasted a little of both sides of life, the good and the other.
In looking back at my motives for either, they are not always clear. Sometimes I did good things, not for others, but for consideration of how I would be perceived. Sometimes I stepped over the line to the other side, not for selfish purposes but for others.
However most of the time, I did good to benefit someone else . The other was motivated solely by selfish instincts.
The libido can be a powerful influence clouding the judgment and motivations of those with the best of intentions.
I paid the price and so did others, emotionally and financially when I allowed my base desires to control my actions.
No matter how old you get, those times come back once in a while to remind that life is not always what you thought it would be as a child.
As I get older, I read comments by other people who have gone through similar experiences and I discover that a few of us have developed similar thoughts about life.
We don’t like any kind of violence, feel for people who suffer and give aid when we can. It is not always money, sometimes it is just the time of day. I for one prefers honesty in all things and try my best to follow through with a promise and do the honorable thing when required. I respect all people, and will only deviate from respect if there is a hell of a good reason not to.
Sometimes I wonder why people of diverse backgrounds, religious or non religious affiliations end up having the same outlook and attitude in life.
Is it genetically preordained? Anything is possible.
I call it the spirit that guides us, as there are not many other plausible explanations. Why do we care what happens around us to people not only within our sphere of influence but those beyond. Why do we prefer truth over bullshit?
There can be scientific explanations, but some of the conclusions that scientific studies conjure up when it is directed to human behavior stretch the imagination pretty far.
….but also anxiety disorders, compared with those who consume alcohol regularly. source time.com.
That is not surprising, except we don’t know if the booze companies funded the research or not.
On the other hand, when Jesus was on this planet he turned the water into wine. I suppose two thousand years ago they had the same problem with depressed sober people. I wouldn’t mind having that gift today, turning water into tequila or beer for example, but the government would have me jailed because of taxation issues on the booze I produced.
The following is an excerpt from www.independent.co.uk…
In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.
Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.
The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.
Life is to be treasured
those among us who believe
life is a travesty
and wish to end it all
or chain us to the wall
have no clue
to our spirit’s desire
as I smell the air
and feel the wind
I listen to the owl
and see the sun
rising on a new day
I forget the shackles
and chains
the idiots claim
must be ours
so suffering is not in vain
what fools are they?
to promote their cause
and take the joy
away from us all
they will fail
as the spirit can be
an indomitable
thing
As I focused on myself
Wondering why?
What did I do to not to deserve
The easy and guaranteed life style
As I was feeling sorrow for my being
my dogs looked at me with love
in their eyes
you poor fool
one day you will understand
we still love you man
but we have to go
as it is time
to procreate
Why we focus so much on the misery of existence when we happen to be endowed with the gifts of humor, song and laughter is beyond me.
To deprive a human of these gifts we share and declare that God is not in favor of us having a little fun is an aberration.
The God I know smiles a lot.
We live in the dimension of recycle, but not the recycle that our poor idiotic brains understand it to be, this life is one big recycling process.
The North American Indians, those without written histories as they knew words on parchment were useless, started understanding this as well as some other sages of the human race.
We exist in this dimension but for a blink and so does everything else and change occurs. Whether we succeed in pulling the trigger on a thousand nukes, matters not, as this will all disappear eventually and regenerate.
We do not know and it is not for us to know what the next step of this recycling journey we are in will take or what species or life form will evolve after we are no longer present.
We are babes in the woods, the greatest minds among us as children just beginning to discover, the basest of minds not caring one way or the other.
The recycling process continues.
When we think all is for nothing on this paved over place we call modern living and we look between the cracks of the concrete below, we spot something green starting to grow. It is only a weed, we think.
That my friends is life recycling, forevermore.
…discover ourselves stumbling through life bouncing off the walls of reality looking for answers which we cannot find and we hear laughter coming from the end of this long tunnel we happen to be in where we see the light as our destination.
The light scares us, so we bounce off a few more walls and look behind us and see the black pit from where we emerged and decide we do not want to return from where we came.
So we continue our journey to the light as our focus become more defined we discover we are not bouncing off the walls any more and the light at the end of the tunnel seems to be filling the very space in which we are and as we look back from whence we came we discover it is now a tiny black speck which is slowly disappearing. That my friends, is life for the good people of this planet earth.
It wasn’t dawn yet, but the lightness of the sky was replacing the darkest hour. It was still this morning, the air moved ever so softly.
Who, who, who. It was a owl, sitting on a tree at the back of my property, near the river.
I thought to myself, who what?
Good question Mr Owl.
Maybe it was Mrs. or Ms. Owl, I can’t be sure.
I realized my mind was starting to play games with me, the owl and the who was real.
My conclusions not.
I can only speak for myself, but when I read his words, I recognize his mind’s processes….
Having an awareness of yourself in the world creates a sense of duality. Here is me and out there is the world. Being aware of myself gives me volition and intention. I also experience pain and suffering, and I have the capacity for love and joy. There is still the distinction that I am apart and separate from the world, and there are billions of us.
When I see the Milky Way i the night sky, the dim path of light from an unknown amount of stars, I rarely view that sight as a series of individual dots of light, fueled by the internal heat of squished atoms generating light and energy.
As a very young child, I remember taking the trash out to the trash barrel and seeing the moon and talking to it, recognizing it as an entity different from what I saw during the day. I had no idea of what I saw, but I felt comforted by the light in the night sky that disappeared and reappeared over time.
Each of us learns by ourselves how we think. We develop our own skills while using our minds, creating that sense of self, separate from others, creating the individual. We do this in a context of social and cultural attitudes and behaviors, and we take on the characteristics of the people around us, developing our theories of the world.
When we get to understand that we don’t know much about anything, we invent, imagine, confabulate, and fit our personal images of what we experience onto the world, creating systems of observation and belief. We think, often using words to describe what we think, even if it is in our own head. Can you tell me what it is if you have no word for it?
When I began to see that I was not the center of the world, and my view was limited by my body and my experience, I began to seek out different explanations of what this is. I lost the innocence of believing from an egocentric point of view.
I think that I have to let go of who I think I am, let go of all the preconceived notions of what this planet is, and what life is, and the way we describe it. We have to let go of our political and social frameworks, our language, our pretensions.
Being in nature helps, being in awe, seeing how small we are, helps. Giving up all the bullshit that we want so dearly to be true, that we are a single solitary being, seems to be necessary if we are to move beyond.
Just listen to that babble of voices inside of you, saying, “don’t listen to that, its wrong,immoral, stupid, uncaring, and impossible. Remember, you know the Truth.’
Funny how easy it is to get back to that comfort zone, here in the real world of poverty, wars, ignorance, opinion, and a sense of self. Who could believe otherwise?
I, along with others, have concluded in our minds there is much wrong with religions and also determined that there is something more which affects our mission as human.
In many respects, for me it is not the people who believe in the message that is being spread about, it is the message itself.
The fact that the fruits of religion are there for the world to see is obvious when we see it on the ground rotting and we use that as evidence of the message’s shortcomings.
But the same rot exists in other circles as well.
I realize the message religion conveys is confusing and contradictory more often than not.
Personally, I do not think it was meant to be this way, and maybe it was.
At the end of the day, we all believe what is in our minds and hearts to believe, whether people agree or not, it is our own faith that is important to us.
As the shackles of bullshit fall from my shoulders I discover that I feel closer to whatever people refer to as God than before.
Maybe that is the way it is meant to be, I do not know. I am thankful for the sanctuary this knowledge has provided for me in my mind. I think without it I would be another piece of rotting fruit.
Since I started this blogging experiment, avatars have come into my life and left, much like face to face relationships.
We have communicated, learned a little of the other, laughed via smileys and disagreed to the point there were no more LOLs.
Never a face or human to attach all this to.
Just words typed on a screen and the avatar, representing the image the typist wanted to display.
The main disadvantage we have is the inability to share quiet time together as friends, see expressions and wonder if responses are genuine or faked in order to play a preconceived game.
Often we do not know if the person we communicate with is young, old, male, female, fat, skinny, religious, atheist, prisoner or free. Many times we do not know the avatar’s race or origins.
And we share thoughts and for the most part it appears to work.
When it doesn’t, there may be a little despondency, but as it is difficult to visualize the human behind the avatar, the effect is minimal as compared to a face to face relationship.
I see a similarity with the Abrahamic religions and the avatars. Moses commanded that no images or likeness be made of God. Later Jesus and Mohammad come into the picture and people now visualize God or God’s representative in human form, similar to visualizing the “Father” in heaven. Sometimes it is easier to attach emotions to something which may be visualized in this manner, to love or hate or just accept as is.
It illustrates some of our limitations as humans, this requirement for visual affirmation, although I also see the strengths in not being able to visualize.
Just an observation.
As I age I reflect on my life and am starting to understand how it works, a little.
When I was young, there was a need to compete to the point of being combative, get the woman of my dreams, sire children, get the things required to stay equal or above my peers.
I also discovered there were no guarantees, no such thing as security, and I am still here.
I don’t like combative anymore, my children are fending for themselves so my role in their lives is diminished, not that we don’t love each other, but the need for me is reduced considerably as a protector, provider and guide.
We are not much different from other life forms on this planet I suppose.
I see where problems arise in this world, with personal relationships and other relationships in respect to government, religions and such. I see the good and bad in all of it.
I see the abuses that led to downturns and I see food stamps, medicare, emergency rooms, police and unemployment preventing chaos and that is good.
I read that faith based groups attempt to help the homeless and things of that nature and that is good.
The stuff that happens by people in control, politicians and lobbyists etc, I have no control over whatsoever. When I see an atrocity, it makes me sick and I rail, but like so many of us, that is all we can do. Voices in the wind.
If I have any control at all over anything I may have a little control over myself.
I feel peace many times, even though there have been extremes and turbulence in my life the last few years. I also have come to understand we do not all think the same about many things. That does not make the person disagreeing a bad person.
Sometimes it is only communication or lack of.
I know we could make the world a better place. I know we could make it freer.
It will be the future generations which will improve or degrade the quality of life on this planet.
I can offer advice to people willing to listen, but that does not mean my advice is the best or even if it is appropriate.
I do know, I no longer consider much of what I considered important in the past to be important now.
If I had to do it all over again, would I?
I am fairly content with me, if it took my life to make me the way I am, yes, even with the garbage that I have been in.
Yet it is the end result that is important, who and what you are at any given time, not what it took to get you there.
“You’re delusional”
“Dementia finally infected Ichabod!”
“God doesn’t exist!”
“It’s about time, Jesus is talking!”
“Ichabod’s an idiot”
“Can’t happen, Jesus or Mohammad was the last of the people God talked to”
“Dreamer!”
“Forget it!”
“Son of a gun, and I was just starting to like him!”
“Really?”
“Blasphemer!”
“You need therapy!”
“I am not sure!”
“Can’t believe anything he says!”
“It says here, it is impossible!”
“Can’t be, he screwed up too often.”
“If Mother Theresa couldn’t speak with God, how can a loser like Ichabod”
“He couldn’t have, he didn’t graduate from a theology course.”
“Only the Pope has the true ear!”
“Ayatollah is not going to like this!”
“Let’s ask Ichabod to do a seminar, lots of coin in God talk, hee, hee!”
“Maybe a book is in the works?”
“Another Jimmy Jones!”
“Fanatic”
“Fundamentalist kook!”
“Ichabod’s a whore, he’ll write anything so people will read his stupid blog!”
“I don’t know, is it possible?”
“We gotta lock him up, there are too many nuts out there as it is.”
“Ignore him, he’s getting older and will kick the bucket one of these days!”
“Don’t pay him no mind!”
“So many ‘real’ believers out there, why him?”
“Ichabod has no soul, he’s evil!”
“God wouldn’t pass the chosen for Ichabod!”
“Who the hell does he think he is?”
“Next thing he’ll do is go on late night talk shows and ask for donations”
“Cheeez, next he’ll be starting the church of Ichabod”
“Self promotion never works!”
Now that I have the basic requirements for God speak fulfilled, I am going to keep all of you guessing
Jim was the author of Blue Collar Manifesto. He posted a few comments on this blog, which prompted me to check his out. He was being evicted from his home and discovered he had a cancerous lump on his rib. He had no insurance, was a former soldier and stockbroker who lost his job. He last posted in March of this year as he no longer had a home.
He was an angry man, yet there was much he said which was not far from truth in my eyes.
Well, that was a miserable failure. Not only did I not get anything off the ground, I discovered a wonderful little lump on a rib. Seen enough to understand what that means. I finally get to be free.
Over 3 months without work. Without money. Soon to be kicked out of where I live. No prospects, and the only ray of sunshine has been a lump on a bone.
Sound morbid? Understand that when I was a kid I thought I was retarded. It was the only answer I could come up with that made sense of the world. A world in which everyone did whatever made their situation worse. A world of politics of hate. A world in which we all allow ourselves to be oppressed because we don’t have the balls to make our own decisions. A world in which we must always destroy our every opportunity to be happy.
Later on, I discovered differently when they put me in one of those advanced placement classes. All they did was lump a small group of us in a classroom that had a higher grade in it. Blah, blah, blah with a different crowd. That was the 6th grade. The same grade I learned to tune out the moronic ramblings of the teachers. Probably the only action that saved my brain from the machine. But no one escapes the grind. Not really.
Later, it was stagflation, women wanting to get married, and increasing pressure to drive drug shipments, that caused me to join the Navy. Wanted to join the Army, but the recruiter was always too drunk to make it to work. Oh well, sailed the seven seas and got out to join the airborne.
Airborne! Fuck ‘em. Married shortly thereafter to a real crazy bitch. Divorced and not allowed to see/talk to the kids unless I remarried her. Fat chance, just drive on and become a zombie. Oh yeah, college after that. Learned all the answers I needed. $50,000, 5 years, and a lot of rage later, I figured out there wasn’t much hope for humanity.
Became a stockbroker afterwards. Money grubbing whore I was, I was. Dead inside until I went skydiving one day. Now, that is gone as well. Just as well, though this is the only time I feel bad about moving on from something.
I’m just tired. 48 years old and so fucking tired of it all. Will be moving on from here soon. Am sure I will be kicked out in a couple of weeks. I figure if I survive the first six weeks with nothing, then I will be tough enough to be considered a threat by the establishment. War is the only thing I’ve ever truly been good at in my life. It’s a shame the only ones I want to wage this war on is my own government.
Just wrote this little note as I had some emails inquiring as to what has happened to me. Strange, but finding that lump has been one of the best things I could have had happen. I will be free soon.
There is a rage still boiling within me now. A rage I know only the grave can still. I have only recently become truly convinced that I am not retarded. Thanks to the collapse of the economy by the banker whores. They are the enemy, but so are all of us that live by there rules.
We live in a world where we worship the dollar. We only care of ourselves, so we will get what we deserve. Not even a footnote in history. A nation filled with opportunities wasted. Fuck you all. Fuck us all. We have all failed. But, at least I will go out with a fight. That’s all I can do. What about you?
Fucking off,
Rev. Jim Lunsford
First Cannabist Church
It’s always the christians who fear the most in the world. But, what can you expect from those who follow the devil’s path? Even though the N.T. is clear, they follow the old ways of hate and call themselves loving. To the pit with them. And hopefully, the darkness shall swallow me as well.
“Why should I?” you may ask.
The answer is simple.
For those of you sitting on the lofty pedestals of self righteousness, you may not be aware that pedestals do not make for great foundations and do come down, dumping you into the mass of humanity which you have despised and looked down upon.
And when you cry for help, you will want someone to give a damn about you.
The men, women and children on both sides of the current wars in the Middle East deserve a little more time and consideration, don’t you think?
While Wall Street is licking its wounds and diving deeper into what got them into this mess, people are living with the consequences. More than a few are wondering for the first time in their lives how they will keep their homes or survive. Meanwhile the inauguration cost a cool $150,000,000, which is chicken feed to a Warren Buffet or Bill Gates, but could keep a lot of people in groceries for a long time.
There is something wrong with priorities and focus the way I see it. Do I see anyone out there who is better suited for the task? There are one or two, but they are not running for the crown and they are not as good looking or charming.
Pity, isn’t it?
The dead are beyond our efforts for anything. Praying for them won’t do any good, they are no longer around.
On the bright side of things, the dead do not suffer the things of this world that are not kind and for those who were worse than animals to their fellow man, when they died it was a relief for the rest of the living, good riddance. People like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and a bunch more.
It amazes me how much of our energies and valuable living time is spent on those no longer here. People are building memorials worth millions, money is spent for articles belonging to someone who had achieved fame in his or her life and some people are not allowed to die as they are worth too much money as idols, like Michael Jackson, Elvis and Jesus.
You would assume with one billion or so of us having a difficult time foraging for food we would get our priorities straight, wouldn’t we?
No.
What do we do? Kill more people.
We as a species are downright frightening at times.
From the time the sperm connects and we are conceived we are starting a journey to our ends. No one knows when or how they will die.
Even suicide is never a sure thing for those who attempt it. Some may be discovered and are saved. You may jump off a bridge or building and wake up in a hospital or wake where you landed, all broken.
I even read of a man who put a barrel of a gun in his mouth, pulled the trigger and survived, as a vegetable.
Suicide bombers are no more secure in achieving their desired state. The bomb may not go off as planned or the bomber may survive the blast.
No one knows.
One thing we are certain of. Those who have truly expired have never lived through it.
There may be a devastating world war three. It may succeed in killing billions. So can an antibiotic resistant epidemic or a drought or a natural phenomena such as the sun burning out or a huge meteor devastating this planet, wiping out the human species.
As a matter of fact, these mass endings provide a little solace as we will be aware that we won’t be the only ones suffering the same fate at approximately the same time.
Religion seems to promote the idea the Apocalypse is a means for God of ridding the world of undesirable creations, many of us who didn’t conform to the law, which no one has been innocent of breaking.
I have known many people who are no longer here, including family members. I survived a few “best” friends, a business partner, a father and brother.
If I was a judge and knowing what I know of them, were they all fodder for the Hell and Damnation set?
I doubt it. My brother was only twelve when he died, so I don’t think he had the time or inclination to be evil yet. As a matter of fact he was a “good” kid.
My father had issues, no different than any other man, but he was not “evil” in my eyes either. He never beat up on my mom or his children. He never killed or murdered anyone that I know of and would help others when he could. He had a heart.
If I were a judge, that is how I would perceive things to be. The Great Spirit, being divine and beyond such things as judging, would have allowed for this I am sure.
I normally work on Sundays, have for years. I am not disturbed much as people are normally taking the day off, so I have a relaxing environment in which to concentrate and focus on what I do.
I usually get up early, it’s 4:43 am as I am writing this and I went to sleep four hours ago. I may or may not take a nap today, it all depends, I have a lot to do and winter isn’t going to wait for me.
I was outside a few minutes ago watching the horizon begin to take form in the east. It’s peaceful on Sunday mornings, most people sleep in on that day, I know teenagers do for sure and late night party goers.
I am thinking about the state of myself as compared to man’s world this morning and sensing a disconnect. I do not believe it is my age causing this, although the culmination of my life’s experiences lead me to being who I am.
Then maybe not.
I may be born again.
I remember how I thought about many things when I was young. Always questioning, never accepting totally what didn’t make sense, even though older, “wiser”, and prominent people maintained it did make sense.
I was a rebel, to many a rebel without a cause. It was and is the true me. Something I am returning to, as for me that is peace.
I’m born again to discovering what is not true and never was, in culture and faith.
I wrote a comment on a news paper blog last night blaming technology on the state of our economy and to me it made sense. Someone replied and made a one word rebuttal to my comment, “slavery”.
Now that I think about it, the rebuttal is right.
I may be born again but am I born free?
No.
There are not many people in this world who are truly free, if any. Someone or something always has some control, and maybe that is necessary. Physical control may be one aspect of life we can not be without, such as law and order.
It took me a while to realize we are not free in how we think. People are brainwashing us with ideologies, dogma , theories and the like, since we are old enough to communicate, building walls of intolerance around our brains, preventing anything of real value from coming in or leaving.
Maybe my rebelliousness had a cause after all.
“Man, he’s tough! Took on three guys all at once and did them in.”
There is an aura with tough guys. Other guys look up to them or want to challenge them, hoping they can get the crown and the gals are attracted like iron filings to a magnet.
I suppose if one were attacked and required to be tough to defend yourself, it comes in handy, but it has to be a pain at times. Like a rich person, you don’t know if people are your friends for you or your money.
And what does it prove?
Knocking someone out doesn’t prove anything. Sooner or later the tough guy will be outmatched, whether it be age, a slip, anything, and there goes the king.
Time always looks after it.
To me, a man’s integrity is more important, not his physical prowess.
“Float like a butterfly and sting like a bee,” ….Cassius Clay AKA Mohammad Ali.
I didn’t like him at first. I hoped the reigning champ would teach this loudmouth braggart a lesson.
Turns out he walked the talk.
In the world of heavyweight boxing, I do think he was the greatest. I saw him go the twelve, stand toe to toe and slug it out and move quicker than greased lighting when it was time to.
I heard him speak one time and was impressed with what he said. He was no fool.
He made an impression. In the early 90’s Mohammad Ali name was the most recognizable name in the world. For me it was not the fact he was skilled at his craft. He actually accomplished what he said he would do, like Babe Ruth pointing the bat to where he would send the ball and following through.
Was it confidence, luck, or something else? I don’t know. I don’t watch sporting events anymore and lost interest in boxing altogether as the sport no longer makes sense to me, yet I give credit to people who walk the talk, for no other reason than it is a rare feat these days.
I have been to a few places in my life that bestowed peace upon me. The feeling was almost tangible. It was like the land itself harbored peace and exuded it.
I also had the experience of being in areas where the hair on the back of my neck stood on end, peace was not the name of the game there. Not that anything was visibly threatening, it just did not feel peaceful.
I don’t know if it was imagination or something else that gave off these vibes I felt, but feel them I did.
That is one of those mysteries in life I have trouble getting a handle on. I wonder if it is scientifically provable?
He introduced himself as “Dutch”. Dutch was a man in his late sixties, slim and affable. I met him in a bar next to a laundry mat while I was waiting for my duds to get cleaned.
“I was born in Holland,” I said, “I am Dutch, why do they call you Dutch?”
He said he was always called that.
“Are you retired,” I asked.
“You might say. Got out of prison a while back.”
“Really?” I couldn’t resist, “long time?”
“Long enough,” he replied, “I was a safe cracker.”
“A safe cracker?”
“Yessir, best in the business, until I slipped up.”
You never know who you will meet in this life.
I stand on the ground, not concrete, asphalt, manicured grass, wood, but I stand on prairie soil, on wild grass, weeds and other plants.
I think back centuries and my mind asks, did they walk here? Was there a village around these parts. Did they live in teepees or in something else?
There were no horses as the Europeans supposedly brought them, but the bison was abundant they say. There is fresh water, fish and plenty of deer and bear here too. The winters can be extreme and long, but they had learned to live with it. How? I am sure they had social interaction and things to do.
Maybe there were no people here, but I don’t see why not.
History, seems to focus on other parts of the world, but we do not know much about the history of the Americas before it was discovered.
There is much to be learned and evidence seems to have disappeared, or a good portion of it except for a few ruins further south.
It would have had to be a tough life, but maybe it wasn’t. Who knows?
It would be nice to know.
I called a couple of travel agencies and asked them to book me a nice place in Heaven and they laughed at me. One agent (who shall remain nameless) said he could get me a confirmed reservation with a mansion for a special recession price of $249,000.99.
I didn’t have the coin, so I went to the emissaries that deal in such things for a phone number or e-mail address in order to get my reservation. I went to a number of these places called churches, synagogues and mosques. They were well advertised, being in the news on a daily basis, so I figured they must know.
They all had application forms which I filled out and I am waiting for a reply.
Like everyone else on this planet, I didn’t want to go to Hell and the Catholics boarded up Limbo quite some time ago because the occupants didn’t make their mortgage payments.
There has to be another way, this process seems too much like the way mortals do it.
Maybe there is another destination we haven’t heard about yet.
A place so nice, they didn’t want to advertise it as there is not enough space to accommodate everyone. The Presidential Heaven, which far above the business class or economy Heaven.
The Presidential Heaven has no mansions, but castles with a whole army of servants and a gigantic estate for those who can afford it and managed to never get caught doing anything stupid on earth.
Just like the good old days on earth when kings, queens and other notables walked around, claiming everything as theirs and making all the people virtual slaves.
I don’t know whether I like that arrangement either.
Maybe I’ll just give up and wait to see what happens.
Red Cloud spoke those words.
In today’s world, I suppose the biggest issues people may have with this quote are, is he crazy not wanting riches and who will set the standard how the children are trained?
I know what he speaks of and why.
The part about training our children right is of interest to me. Here is a native of North America who is concerned about how is children will grow up. I assume this concern is part of his upbringing and goes back generations, long before the white man set foot on the Americas.
That leads me to believe that people had morals and desires in how their children would turn out as adults. To actualize on this “training”, I would think they taught by example as well as by other means.
The Indians raised children generation after generation, men and women, many who have proved to be intelligent, wise in the ways of human behavior and possessing integrity.
I don’t see much wrong with that. They appeared to accomplish this feat without the benefit of written books of any kind.
You have to wonder, as far as faiths and religions go, who may have been closer to truth, the North American Native or the people who came from other lands?
I post bouzouki’s thoughts on this venue, as I am no longer a young man and after reading his musings, he articulates what many of us probably think and addresses issues some of us are too scared to think of, but which nevertheless is food for thought and consideration.
As a world, we have the resources to feed everyone, but it might mean that some of us would have to do with less, to let others have more. In the political realm in America, a number of outspoken Christians have joined with a large group of very wealthy people to foster their agenda of allowing a small group to amass huge fortunes and to create a social agenda based on a particular reading of the Bible. In America, we spend too much money on weapons, out of fear that we might lose what we have. We still have people living in poverty.
I have seen images of the poor in the world. 1,000,000,000 people live on less than a dollar a day. Another billion make a little over twice as much.
To think the victims of today were people that caused pain and suffering in a former life has a sense of justice to it, but I have no way of knowing if there is anything to it. To think that we all have one shot at life, and depending on circumstance, one of us is the Dalai lama (but they believe in reincarnation), and one of us is Donald Trump, and One Billion of us may starve tomorrow, or today, and those of us lucky enough can get a charm pass to Heaven, if we are Chosen doesn’t feel right to me.
To think that I am part of earth, mostly water, and need life to sustain me, and I have been given a gift of consciousness, to use to help myself and others to become aware of our place, however small, in the universe….
To think our brain can be rational and logical, while emotional and biased. We can be stupid or smart, ugly or good looking, rich or poor, but always human. We can be damaged beyond repair, or die from a virus, or a car, even though we were rich or…whatever we were.
I have stood in silence in a canyon of sandstone, listening for the faint whisper of a breath of wind, felling every thought fade, until the tree I am facing is my reflection. then returned to my life and my home.
There are those
who allow emotion
to rule
and never use
the mind
the mind is a tool
everyone has
many forget
they own
some use it wisely
others not
when those
who do not
use the mind
control those
who do
the world becomes
a less pleasant place
for all
That is the biggest problem facing us as a civilization.
Sad isn’t it?
Can you imagine cattle having to pull out a wallet and paying for grazing rights.? Or geese or ducks having to fork over cash to land in a pond somewhere. Maybe they have debit cards.
What about a bear having to purchase a fishing license to catch a salmon breakfast?
We, the intelligent species by our own reckoning, require money to live like human beings.
As intelligent as we are, we haven’t figured out a way to use the positive things we have managed to create to allow us to live as civilized human beings without coin or become hostage to the whims of nature.
This illustrates how we really are.
We can create nuclear bombs, gunships, agent orange, embargoes and trade based on coin.
We can’t figure out how to do it any other way.
When we can finally achieve a better system than what is and implement it for the good of mankind and this planet, we will be living up to our potential.
Anything else has no meaning.
The one truth we know about life is we are living it.
Some people have better lives than others, at least in my eyes.
It is not difficult to assume this. When you look at a happy healthy baby who lives in a fine home in a democratic country and compare that to a child who is malnourished, abused or has no one to look or love him or her, it is a logical assumption.
I wonder why that is? It is tempting to speculate on reincarnation and that the poor malnourished kids may have been Nazi Death camp guards in a previous life and are paying the price now, hell on earth.
Except it is not mathematically possible as there are more people on earth today than a generation or two ago, unless the dead souls accumulate and are recycled at different times.
Other than that, there is a problem in my mind as to why this situation occurs.
Is it necessary?
I don’t think so, do you?
Title of an old George Jones tune.
I was thinking about those words. It happens every day, with people who are living and to those when a spouse or loved one is no more.
I was speaking to a woman in her later years some months ago while waiting in a store. She seemed a little off, I sensed it.
“Are you ok?”
“My husband died two months ago. I still have a tough time .”
“Married long?” I asked.
‘We were sweethearts in school. Been together ever since. I feel like part of me is gone,” tears welled up in her eyes.
All I could do was listen. It was not the first time for me, listening to someone who lost a life mate.
They just need to talk is all, and a shoulder to cry on. Not that it takes away the grief, but the knowledge they are not alone, I think helps.
I think about marriage and the end. The survivor may end up with another partner, perhaps loving the new one more than the deceased, maybe not.
There is much we don’t know. I do know that when two people share a life together long enough and they experience happiness together, there is a bond between them that makes the two as one.
It is a great thing it is.
Until he stops loving her….
Many times I stand outside in the night.
Everyone is sleeping in the house as I keep weird hours at times. I am usually alone. There were a few times I stepped outside and deer or geese were a few yards away. Sometimes they fled, sometimes not.
There was this big old red fox used to come around, except I haven’t seem him in about four months. An owl used to sit on top of the electrical pole and hoot. The owl left for greener pastures as well.
Many times I look straight up into the blackness and peer through the stars, wondering.
I am alone, but don’t feel alone.
It is a sense I think. When I was a kid, I probably would have been frightened standing under the cover of night, but it is totally comfortable now.
It is funny how minds change with age, and emotions.
It’s good.
Then he’d laugh and his fingers danced on the keyboard, the blues version of “A closer walk with thee” would transcend on the place.
We’d smoke our cigarettes and sip on whatever was in front of us and enjoy the moment. I felt like I was in heaven and was not in a place anyone would consider close.
The music was fine, the best. Jose was a concert pianist with a penchant for blues, soul and jazz, whatever the mood called for.
One winters eve, Jose and I were alone with seventeen members of a woman’s choir. A blizzard was raging outside and there was no help, so I climbed behind the bar and performed the duties.
One of the women challenged Jose, “something classical” she said, winking at her friend, not thinking Jose up to the task.
“Let me see,” he smiled and we stayed till four am, all loving our own concert. The women sounded fantastic.
There were many evenings like that in my life and many entertainers. Those special moments one can’t buy. They just happen. I’ve been more fortunate than most.
One day I’ll go back and find me the music again, or maybe it’ll come to me.
Years of plucking the fruit with no thought to irrigation or nutrients have made the money tree susceptible to the whims of nature. Now it is withering, the money is no longer budding.
Unfortunately, human beings are the only species on this planet which requires more than food, water and shelter to survive. For some reason, during the course of evolution, money was created for humans to purchase what other life forms recieve for nothing.
Maybe we as a species, can take another look at this phenomena and change it, for when the money tree is gone, changes will occur which may not be pleasant.
Now is the time to look at creating “real” change.
The money tree won’t be it anymore.
…and since then it has been an evolving process.
I have learned much from people who I communicated with about my writing and other blogs. We are not islands and many share similar thoughts and beliefs, regardless what they may be.
This journey of writing has opened my mind to me. Slowly discovering who and what I am to me.
I think I am beginning to understand I.
Will it make a difference?
I don’t know, but it removes burdens which I carried in the past. I think attempting to be honest about it helps.
No one is absolutely right or wrong on this planet, so truth is sometimes difficult or impossible to discern, absolute truth that is. It is about as difficult to envision truth as perfection.
Maybe they do not exist.
But I am happy being me, and what I observe of other lives, do not really wish to trade places with anyone, even if their lives may seem “blessed”.
It is amazing when you start a journey, which direction it may lead, isn’t it?
It was long ago. We scrounged for coin and bought the cheapest rot gut money could buy. We headed down to the river and sat in the hull of a boat, watching nature and discussing, life, while taking in brain anesthesia. It was safe there as the cops or other nosy people would never come.
The winos I was with, made a lifetime vocation of this craft, desensitizing oneself to the realities of life. I managed to break away.
Contrary to what many think, they were people and had their own opinions. At that time Merle Haggard had a song out and some of the words come to mind, “They keep on looking down their noses at me cause I didn’t come from a wealthy family.” We liked that tune. Johnny Cash was also a favorite, the ballad of Ira Hayes and Ring of Fire were popular with us.
The fellows, there were no women present, were a mixture of natives and children of immigrants who could not or did not have the facilities to deal with the world as was presented to them, so they drank.
A few were far from angels, and many were harmless, just couldn’t play the game.
It was a good experience in many ways. Experiencing the “other side” gives a perspective you can’t understand if you have never been there. It’s like talking about war, watching it on TV, and voting to start one, when you have never felt or tasted the effects of it.
It is impossible.
Why did I do the things I did in life? I don’t know.
I do know one thing, not everything is as it appears on the surface. Not as cut and dried as many would have you believe.
It was an education I received that you cannot “get” in a school or university.
I am glad I received it.
Cause and effect, Yin and Yang, Karma, what goes around comes around, good versus evil.
Experiencing my life, I have found little to dispute the above phrases to be true.
For some reason, causing a turbulence through unacceptable behavior or immoral practices has an effect on life.
People cheating the system and stealing can cause havoc, as we have observed through the world economies recently.
Murder and genocide also create effects, as we also observe in life and in history.
Even adultery, which is something many do not believe in, has come into play to reduce trust and status in the world for people who did not think they would be caught.
It is not that simple, is it? There is a system of checks and balances, even if it is unseen.
It makes you wonder, for it appears no one is immune. Sooner or later it comes back to haunt them.
Roman Polanski is a good example as is John Edwards, David Letterman et, al.
There is more to life than meets the eye, that is obvious.
One wise man said it is better to be good, I would have to concur. Another said the following which I cannot disagree with;
“The earth does not belong to man. Man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand to it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself.”
This is Banned Book week to celebrate the books that have been banned. One web site, suite101.com, reports that 420 books were banned or challenged in schools or libraries in 2007.
From what I have read in my life, it surprises me that the number is so high.
“Books will continue to be challenged, censored, or banned. Writers expressing volatile or unpopular opinions will continue to be targeted. Materials for young people that include sex, violence, profanity, and racial or religious views will continue to have an audience that doesn’t approve.”
People controlling people.
We all have a choice and don’t have to read it. If a child is exposed, it is up to the parent or guardian to control what the child is subjected to.
There is something about this world, when you become aware of it by being in it, that has a profound effect.
Many people who are outside a lot, farmers, surfers, mountain climbers, hikers, telephone and electrical linemen, carpenters and more who take the time to stop a moment and just be one with what is around them know what I speak of.
Allowing the world around them to “speak” to them. Observing all the life that is, from bugs, snakes, birds, deer, moose, whales and much more all in their native habitat is awe inspiring.
There is nothing that can compare. Man’s efforts to dazzle can not match nature, at peace or when something unusual is going on such as violent thunderstorms, hurricanes, blizzards and more.
We are an integral part to all of this as it is to us. We are one.
It does speak to us and teaches us. All we have to do is use our senses and allow it to communicate.
I walked in a snowstorm early this year in sub zero temperatures. It was work wading through the drifts and walking to the town I wondered for a moment whether I would make it.
Once I reached the service station and stepped inside, I felt invigorated. I don’t really like cold weather, but being out there defying it, being at one with it at the same time, offers a new perspective on life.
The world humbles and inspires.
…in an experienced competent physician over a faith healer.
…in a secular government which provided income, food and shelter to the poor without questions asked as to what they may or may not believe in than a faith based charity.
…in a leader who studies facts and is aware of life and death in assessing the need for war versus a religious point of view which sees war as an inevitable desire of God.
…in freedom for all without bowing to the desires of the organized few who demand that their rituals are necessary for all.
…in compassion for those who cannot fend for themselves or those who suffer under a tyrant’s hand regardless what these people may or may not believe.
…the fairness of just and reasonable men versus those who use another standard which changes on a whim.
…in people who dare search for truth rather than accepting what is advertised to be true but is not
…in the Samaritan who aids the waylaid traveler over the prayers of a stranger.
…in food harvested by man than the hope it will come from a divine hand
…in learning from life and adjusting my ways to achieve peace of mind rather than hoping someone long dead may allow grace to provide.
…in the ability of mankind to come together in times of need or peril rather than an unseen entity providing the requirements of a population in need.
When you think about it, secular government ruled with wise men and women have made strides far beyond that which those of faith have accomplished in all areas of life and even though there are imperfections, the countries which follow the secular way have peoples from all races, creeds and religions living side by side.
That is saying something good about humanity.
Being tired of getting murdered by humans through genocidal weapons of insect destruction such as pesticides, they have formed a unified government and are not going to take this anymore.
The first order of business was breeding, they all voted to increase new insect production ten fold.
The second order of business is the agreement to carry pesky little bacteria and viruses known to wipe out humans.
The third edict is to make humans life as miserable as possible.
Finally, a number of them volunteered to participated in suicide attacks on the two legged mammals with no fur.
Insect scientists are working feverishly around the clock for antidotes to chemicals such as Raid, and they are succeeding as the last few cans I bought of the stuff were useless and overly priced.
Some of the insects are taking their grievances all the way to the top, and are praying for salvation and retribution.
Mankind better watch out, the critters will be back in the spring, big time.
He felt almost as good
this morning
as he did in days gone by
and proceeded
down the sidewalk
evading passers by
he spotted her walking
toward him from
afar
and noticed her svelte ways
the sensuous smile
she walked straight and tall
freedom in the wind
he fell in love
an instant within
she saw him from
afar
his unkempt beard
and stumps
where legs
had been
as she came upon him
she looked down
in disgust
and crossed the street
to evade his look
of lust
he couldn’t wait
to vanish
in the box
he called home
the man pulled out
his purple heart
and
cried
…I will be a good little citizen and kick the bucket as soon as possible, so people won’t have to watch me suffer and I won’t have to endure it.
As long as they let me have tax free cigarettes and tequila so I can enjoy my last days on this planet. I think that is fair, don’t you?
However, no one is talking about injured people.
Do they fall in the same category as sick ones?
Who knows?
That was in my spam folder this morning, a message for sexy adults only.
Why are they sending this to me?
I’m not sexy and doubt I ever was.
Why can’t these people get it straight and send their messages to sexy people?
Maybe the census bureau can have their census takers describe if the people they are interviewing are sexy or not and pass on the info to spam operators, saving me aggravation and the spam operators money.
However that may be difficult to do. Everyone thinks Angelina Jolie is sexy, but I don’t. She is not my type.
Maybe I am weird
The phrase is used often enough.
“Common sense,” is used to describe thoughts of a person and is considered a sound understanding or viewpoint as compared to society.
How does anyone know whether it is common sense or not?
Do people take surveys first?
What is common sense in one culture may be considered madness in another.
Consider the professional diagnosis of schizophrenia requires consideration of cultural background.
I read an article yesterday of an American man jailed in Japan for trying to take his children. For the Japanese, the relationship between a father and children is not viewed in the same manner as in the United States.
So what is common sense?
Maybe it doesn’t exist except in our own minds.
“What do you think?”
He asked the psychiatrist after the interview was done, or something very close to those words as I am recalling from memory.
It was the look on the Iceman’s face, along with the words, which registered with me. After all was said and done, he seemed to require affirmation from somebody he was still a person. A human.
The Iceman was a cold blooded contract killer for the mob. He started murdering in life at an early age and the chore of taking a life or torturing did not bother him at all.
He appeared honest in his dialog with the psychiatrist, confessing his deeds, relationships with his wife and children, which were less than stellar, his life.
After watching the interview, it brought to mind thoughts I had when I was younger. I wondered what it would be like to kill someone, even walked the whole process through my mind.
I wondered how I would feel afterward.
I never did kill anyone, but whether that was by design or conscience I do not know.
I believe we are all capable of atrocities against others.
Why don’t we kill like the Iceman? Dispose of those who irritate us?
Maybe it has to do with love and affirmation we are human?
I have read this time and time again.
Today in the theglobeandmail.com it is reported that a 69 year old Roman Catholic Bishop is charged with importing and possessing child porn.
After a forensic examination revealed child pornography, Ottawa police charged Bishop Lahey, 69, Friday and issued a warrant for his arrest.
In a statement Saturday, Bishop Lahey said that “after much thought and careful consideration” he had submitted his resignation to Pope Benedict “for personal reasons.”
“…To so many of you I would want to say a personal word of farewell and thanks. However, I have already left the diocese to take some much-needed time for personal renewal. I simply ask for your prayers, as I assure you of my continued prayers for you all,” he wrote.
In the 1980’s it was estimated that 17% of priests were pedophiles. Almost one out of every five priests is someone you can’t trust alone with your children.
Is it the vow of celibacy that does it?
Were they screwed up before they entered the priesthood?
I am sure, that they did not become priests to end up like this.
Or is there something wrong with the vocation they choose to follow?
….bouzouki.
It is early morning and there is lightning and thunder as I write. i have an extra hour before going to pound nails, which is not something I could actually do as a profession, I am somewhat better than a laborer. My “boss” and I have been friends since 1973, and we are still friends, because he knows how worthless I am as a carpenter. I enjoy working with him.
I am cynical about the world at large, but I enjoy my life, most of the time. I have physical damage which limits me and I experience pain from previous events in my life. I have even voted, mostly for losers, due to my enjoyment of change, and I think we should all get to enjoy change.
I suppose I should be considered “crazy”, because I spent much of four years ingesting psychedelics, waiting for the “man” to come and put me in jail for not wanting to go kill other people, but the authorities decided that I might be more trouble in the military or in a courtroom, so they declared me physically fit but really unfit for military service.
To atone for my refusal to be cannon fodder, I spent thirty years taking care of and counseling the mentally damaged and distressed. i don’t regret my decisions. I have been given a chance to explore the nature of suffering, not only from my own perspective, but through the words of many unhappy people. Often, they wanted a release from their mental pain, and were willing to die to get relief. I think the system that is currently in place, is manufactured by circumstances and not “cut in stone”. It moves by its own inertia, and also the will of the richest and most powerful of the monkeys in charge. I have no idea how we developed intellectual functioning. We still have emotional baggage and the more technological we become, and the faster we push our lives, the more unsatisfied we become.
Each society develops acceptable ways to go nuts. The more trapped you are in your life and your job, the more drugs you take, whether it is for medical problems like blood pressure, or stress related illnesses, or if you take drugs for a form of enjoyment, like alcohol, tobacco, pain killers,or marihuana. You can become addicted to acceptable forms of behavior, like amassing fortunes, or become dependent on sex, or food. You can take drugs like methamphetamine to give yourself a boost, until you can’t get enough. You can take narcotics to numb yourself from the world. Or you can be normal and be angry, unhappy, hoping that there is a Heaven where you can be happy and not have to be in this world.
I am going to work in the rain today. When I get home I will make dinner, and I am going to pack the last of the plums from my plum tree, into a jar and fill the empty space with brandy and wait until the fruit and brandy are ready, and enjoy the fruits of my labor.
“Lets get them!”
“OK.”
Weapons are gathered, people trained in slaughter, and away they go.
What would the world be like, if people said “No, not interested. Do it yourself. I am not going to melt my plow to make a gun. Guns don’t feed people, plows do.”
If both sides of an impeding conflict came up to that conclusion, maybe we would have a newer, improved lifestyle.
It takes a little while before our eyes work.
We really can’t think, because we do not know anything nor have we learned how to think yet.
We do not have a sense of humor.
All we can do is cry and eat.
We can’t walk, talk or look after ourselves. We are not even potty trained.
Talk about helpless.
Without love, nourishment and protection, we would not survive.
Most children are not capable of looking after themselves until they have been around for a few years and when the mind and body start working together.
This is our collective beginning. The end is the same for us all.
What happens in between is a mystery.
…and put them somewhere where they can settle their differences and leave the rest of the world alone.
Maybe there will be real “change” then.
After all, it is a lot easier to send someone to do the “dirty” work for you than doing it yourself, isn’t it?
I wonder why the world hasn’t figured this out yet?
The problem is they are so unhappy or depressed, logic or reason no longer works.
They may not think to themselves, what if there is no emotion after life? Happiness is feeling.
According to religious circles, if by chance there is a heaven, the person who took his or her own life may well be rejected, unless they are suicide bombers, that is an exception.
So suicide victims go to hell, which is supposedly guaranteed to make you more miserable than you are on this planet earth.
This is possibly the best argument for legalizing drugs. People should be allowed to get happy, even if they have to be stoned to achieve this state of euphoria, contrary to what big brother desires, as happiness is not what government is about.
Life is weird. One day I am going to pack a few things, head out into the vast unknown and be happy.
While my creditors and work sit behind me waiting for me to return, I will be where they can’t find me, sipping on a tequila, enjoying friends and sunshine. The rest be damned.
“To think that working at a place that makes you mentally ill is just an occupational hazard needs to be reexamined. Is all the stuff you bought from working at your job, worth your life?”…bouzouki.
There are times that a dictatorial employer who is mentally ill or the functions that employment requires can make life hell on earth.
What is the alternative?
Is there any?
How many on this planet, including Americans feel liberty or that they are free to pursue happiness?
Happiness is an elusive word, for many it means peace and security, for others it means owning stuff and having money and for others it means getting high.
Happiness has four definitions:
Easterbrook, also a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institute, goes back to Freud, who theorized that unhappiness is a default condition because it takes less effort to be unhappy than to be happy.
“If you are looking for something to complain about, you are absolutely certain to find it,” Easterbrook told LiveScience. “It requires some effort to achieve a happy outlook on life, and most people don’t make it. Most people take the path of least resistance. Far too many people today don’t make the steps to make their life more fulfilling one.”….source livescience.com.
The article also says;
Happiness is 50 percent genetic, says University of Minnesota researcher David Lykken. What you do with the other half of the challenge depends largely on determination, psychologists agree. As Abraham Lincoln once said, “Most people are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
Happiness does not come via prescription drugs, although 10 percent of women 18 and older and 4 percent of men take antidepressants, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Anti-depressants benefit those with mental illness but are no happiness guarantee, researchers say.
Nor will money or prosperity buy happiness for many of us. Money that lifts people out of poverty increases happiness, but after that, the better paychecks stop paying off sense-of-well-being dividends, research shows.
The long and short of it, if you are half born with happiness, it takes work to find the other half of happiness and other than sustenance, money really has no bearing on it.
From reading the news and seeing what goes on in the world, it appears that most people are not genetically gifted with happiness and those who are, many are too lazy to fulfill the other half of the happiness quotient.
Misery loves company holds true in this scenario
I never cared much for horror films, but like most people, end up watching them from time to time with others who enjoy the genre.
I think the original Exorcist got my attention as it was based loosely on a true story. It had me wondering if demon possession was possible, especially after reading that Catholic priests were actually trained in exorcism.
I saw a documentary on the event which the movie Exorcist was based on and it was of interest. Something unusual had apparently taken place. Although I doubt that heads rotated 360 degrees spewing green slime.
I have seen mentally ill people who could give any movie a run for the money in the fear department. There is something unnerving about someone who does think rationally, and when that state of madness shows in their eyes, shivers run down my spine.
The story is published at telegraph.co.uk.
The latest death came on Monday when a 51-year-old jumped from a motorway bridge in the French Alps. The employee, who was married with two children, left a note blaming the “atmosphere” at work for his decision to end his life.
Is this a sign of things to come?
What would prompt a person to kill him or her self over a job?
There is no hope for many. In this day and age one would think we could prevent these tragedies, but it appears not.
…they told me stories
of great and famous men
knights in armor and
a king with a sword
named Excalibur
they were pure of heart
and slayed dragons
to save the damsels
they loved
forevermore
even the thief
named Robin Hood
was a hero
for he gave
to the poor
i wished to be like
those brave knights
heroes of old
and would have
risked my life
for the good cause
and a damsel
I would love
forevermore.
as I grew older
I came to know
the knights and thief
were not all they
seemed to be
in the fabled land
called good
I hear the drums of war
in far off places
desperate people
in frightening places
I am no longer young
and hope the fighting
will soon end
for there is no knight
in a land called good
and no damsel
forevermore