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The Golden Boy with the Teflon Suit
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| Moving... |
[05 May 2010|06:22pm] |
The Daimon sings, my Geas compels me
No false riches, have I, to pay my Weregilt
The sleeper awakens, my mind sets in motion
do What Thou wilt; shall Be the Whole of The Law
o, Tanelorn
love is The Law. love Under Will.
lo,
Testing over all-ful awe, Mine..., might
Ebonic, Herme's Trismegistus. io
The working girls of Babylon dance across...
The city skyline. Magnus Phallus Sigils
each Architected, raised, built, big bi'god
all taller
Than, but, The Last...
Choke
Tricks taught, to play, convinced thou dost enjoy it
hoping it will FINISH sooner, come
O, fools, follow the sound of my pipe, hie, away
To greener pastures, streams
Hell, to be
waSHed
A way
---
I just don't fit in at LJ anymore I guess, I don't read I don't post...
Anyway the new blogs:
That novel, you know the one every writer has grinding away in their head? That one. I'm writing it here chapter by chapter as a serial... Start here at the "Intro?":
The Amazing Adventures of Cantwell Crip: Intro?
And the other blog, just whatever comes to mind I guess...
MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN
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| Just up on Gawker... |
[28 Mar 2010|02:57am] |
Exclusive: Secret-Sharing Website Wikileaks Offers New Details On Alleged U.S. Surveillance
This is the email that gawker got in full:
SOMETHING IS ROTTEN IN THE STATE OF ICELAND
Over the last few years, WikiLeaks has been the subject of hostile
acts by security organizations. In the developing world, these range
from the appalling assassination of two related human rights lawyers in
Nairobi last March (an armed attack on my compound there in 2007 is still
unattributed) to an unsuccessful mass attack by Chinese computers on our
servers in Stockholm, after we published photos of murders in Tibet. In
the West this has ranged from a police raid in Germany over an Australian
censorship list, to an ambush by a "James Bond" character in a Luxembourg
car park, an event that ended with a mere "we think it would be in your
interest to...".
Developing world violence aside, we've become used to the level of
security service interest in us and have established procedures to ignore
that interest.
But the increase in surveillance activities this last month, in a
time when we are barely publishing due to fundraising, are excessive.
Some of the new interest is related to a film exposing a U.S. massacre
we will release at the U.S. National Press Club on April 5.
The spying includes attempted covert following, photographng, filming and
the overt detention & questioning of a WikiLeaks' volunteer in Iceland
on Monday night.
I, and others were in Iceland to advise Icelandic parliamentarians on
the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, a new package of laws designed
to protect investigative journalists and internet services from spying
and censorship. As such, the spying has an extra poignancy.
The possible triggers:
(1) our ongoing work on a classified film revealing civilian casualties
occurring under the command of the U.S, general, David Petraeus.
(2) our release of a classified 32 page US intelligence report on how to
fatally marginalize WikiLeaks (expose our sources, destroy our
reputation for integrity, hack us).
(3) our release of a classified cable from the U.S. Embassy in
Reykjavik reporting on contact between the U.S. and
the U.K. over billions of euros in claimed loan guarantees.
(4) pending releases related to the collapse of the Icelandic
banks and Icelandic "oligarchs".
We have discovered half a dozen attempts at covert surveillance in
Reykjavik both by native English speakers and Icelanders. On the occasions
where these individuals were approached, they ran away. One had marked
police equipment and the license plates for another suspicious
vehicle track back to the Icelandic private VIP bodyguard firm Terr (
http://terr.is/ ). What does that mean? We don't know. But as you will
see, other events are clear.
U.S. sources told Icelandic state media's deputy head of news, that the
State Department was aggressively investigating a leak from the
U.S. Embassy in Reykjavik. I was seen at a private U.S Embassy party at
the Ambassador's residence, late last year and it is known I had
contact with Embassay staff, after.
On Thursday March 18, 2010, I took the 2.15 PM flight out of Reykjavik
to Copenhagen—on the way to speak at the SKUP investigative journalism
conference in Norway. After receiving a tip, we obtained airline records
for the flght concerned. Two individuals, recorded as brandishing
diplomatic credentials checked in for my flight at 12:03 and 12:06 under
the name of "US State Department". The two are not recorded as having
any luggage.
Iceland doesn't have a separate security service. It folds its
intelligence function into its police forces, leading to an uneasy
overlap of policing and intelligence functions and values.
On Monday 22, March, at approximately 8.30pm, a WikiLeaks volunteer
was detained by Icelandic police for over 20 hours on an insignificant
matter. The police then apparently took the opportunity to detain the
volunteer over night, without charge—an unusual act in Iceland. The
next day, during the course of interrogation, the volunteer was shown
covert photos of me outside the Reykjavik restaurant "Icelandic Fish &
Chips", where a WikiLeaks production meeting took place on Wednesday
March 17, 2010—the day before individuals operating under the name of
the U.S. State Department boarded my flight to Copenhagen.
The spied on production meeting used a discreet, closed, backroom.
The subject: a concealed, scandalous, U.S. military video showing civilian
kills by U.S. pilots. During the interrogation, a specific reference was
made by police to the video—-which could not have been understood from
that day's exterior surveillance alone. Another specific reference was
made to "important", but unnamed Icelandic figures. References were also
made to the names of two senior journalists at the production meeting.
Who are the Icelandic security services loyal to in their values? The
new government of April 2009, the old pro-Iraq war government of the
Independence party, or perhaps to their personal relationships with
peers from another country who have them on a permanment intelligence
information drip?
Only a few years ago, Icelandic airspace was used for CIA rendition
flights. Why did the CIA think that this was acceptable? In a classified
U.S. profile on the former Icelandic Ambassador to the United States,
obtained by WikiLeaks, the Ambassador is praised for helping to quell
publicity of the CIA's activities.
Often when a bold new government arises, bureaucratic institutions remain
loyal to the old regime and it can take time to change the guard. Former
regime loyalists must be discovered, dissuaded and removed. But for the
security services, that first vital step, discovery, is awry. Congenitally
scared of the light, such services hide their activities; if it is not
known what security services are doing, then it is surely impossible to
know who they are doing it for.
It's also up on the front page of wikileaks now.
Other important coverage...
Why you should care about this. An article from Glenn Greenwald:
The war on WikiLeaks and why it matters:
A newly leaked CIA report prepared earlier this month (.pdf) analyzes how the U.S. Government can best manipulate public opinion in Germany and France -- in order to ensure that those countries continue to fight in Afghanistan. The Report celebrates the fact that the governments of those two nations continue to fight the war in defiance of overwhelming public opinion which opposes it -- so much for all the recent veneration of "consent of the governed" -- and it notes that this is possible due to lack of interest among their citizenry: "Public Apathy Enables Leaders to Ignore Voters," proclaims the title of one section.
...
But the Report also cites the "fall of the Dutch Government over its troop commitment to Afghanistan" and worries that -- particularly if the "bloody summer in Afghanistan" that many predict takes place -- what happened to the Dutch will spread as a result of the "fragility of European support" for the war. As the truly creepy Report title puts it, the CIA's concern is: "Why Counting on Apathy May Not Be Enough":
...
The Report seeks to provide a back-up plan for "counting on apathy," and provides ways that the U.S. Government can manipulate public opinion in these foreign countries. It explains that French sympathy for Afghan refugees means that exploiting Afghan women as pro-war messengers would be effective, while Germans would be more vulnerable to a fear-mongering campaign (failure in Afghanistan means the Terrorists will get you). The Report highlights the unique ability of Barack Obama to sell war to European populations ...
[UPDATE]:
Oh yes, and April the 5th is when Wiki teh leaks is going to be releasing "U.S. military video showing civilian kills by U.S. pilots." As in; They "used airbursting bombs with civilians in the area".
Is the U.S. Government Spying on a Tiny Secret-Sharing Website?
Also:
Afghan Airstrike Video Goes Down the Memory Hole
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| Absolutely Hilarious... If I wasn't so emotionally flattened I'd laugh till I cried... |
[27 Mar 2010|03:54am] |
[Another one of those venting sessions still drafting, drafting in public is a very interesting experiment I think I'll keep doing it... But getting incoherant from tiredness and sleepiness, well actually was already extremely exhausted from the long long looooong (even for me) walk home from the gdoc clinic which I had to do since I can't use public transport in any functional way and I couldn't afford another cab fare... Found out I'm anemic on top of everything else... Gah!]
Have psychiatric wards changed?
If you found yourself locked up against your will in a psychiatric ward, you would probably do your best to get out. But in 1969 a group of people did just the opposite — they tried to get in. A young American psychologist called David Rosenhan persuaded seven friends (two psychologists, a psychiatrist, a doctor, a housewife, a painter and a student) to see whether they could convince doctors that they were mentally ill simply by claiming to hear voices. Now previously unpublished notes from Rosenhan’s private archive reveal what the experience was really like.
Between 1969 and 1972 the team of “pseudo-patients” presented themselves at 12 different US hospitals in five states on the East and West coasts. What would a sane person have to do to convince a doctor they were insane? Not a lot, it seems.
Having claimed to hear words from “thud” and “empty” to “hollow”, words selected because they had never been recorded in psychiatric literature, every pseudo-patient was admitted to hospital for varying lengths of time, from 7 to 52 days. They were given diagnoses of schizophrenia and prescribed a total of 2,100 pills (only two of which were swallowed; in preparation for the study the pseudo-patients had learnt to “cheek” any medication).
Other than giving false names and inventing voices, the patients were to answer all other questions honestly. If they were admitted to hospital they were to say that they felt better and that the voices had disappeared. Not one member of staff suspected them of faking it.
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Not only could the doctors be fooled, but once Rosenhan had been given a diagnosis the hospital staff began to read into his actions. His study required him to keep detailed observations, so the staff often saw him writing notes. This was described as “writing behaviour”. When one of the other pseudo-patients, a professional painter, sat down one day and began to paint, this was deemed “painting behaviour”.
Looking through Rosenhan’s notes, it’s clear that the whole experience has had a lasting effect on him. “Months spent as a pseudo-patient have evoked in me passions that I hardly believed I knew existed,” he says. He found himself in a Catch-22 situation: even when he told the doctors that he felt better, he still wasn’t allowed to leave. “The only way out was to point out that they were correct. They said I had been insane, I was insane, but I was getting better. It was an affirmation of their views.”
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The study demonstrates something much broader about human nature, something that psychological research has confirmed many times: once we have a view about a person, we look for anything that backs up our ideas and we explain away any evidence to the contrary. Ellen Langer, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, says that within the health sphere this can have far-reaching consequences, “When a patient walks in to see a therapist that person is seen through a patient lens. Very ordinary behaviours are now going to seem extraordinary or pathological.”
So once you're diagnosed with a psychiatric illness...
once we have a view about a person, we look for anything that backs up our ideas and we explain away any evidence to the contrary.
... even behaviours that would be considered utterly normal without a diagnosis are pathologized.
Heh...
He found himself in a Catch-22 situation: even when he told the doctors that he felt better, he still wasn’t allowed to leave. “The only way out was to point out that they were correct. They said I had been insane, I was insane, but I was getting better. It was an affirmation of their views.”
And that's what other patients kept telling me to do instead of just being honest in my reporting, but I am a Manic Depressive, I have a psychiatric condition, I have to be honest with my treating doctors.
But I can see why patients lie, a lot of the time they have to because if they tell the truth they'll be further pathologized... Honestly if everyone were to suddenly present at a psychiatric ward well actually that psychiatric ward (I've been to a good well run one and it wasn't like that, like when a manic patient came in they didn't immediately try to corner and control him in the good place they pulled me in and got me to play table tennis with him while talking him down since I knew what it was like to be manic and could talk him down) and be totally honest with the staff the world would be an empty place and psychiatry wards would be like a clown car.
That and if my experience is anything to go by patients got lied to like when I knew I was manic when I came in, knew in the back of my mind I had to explain that if I took olanzapine under that kind of stress without a muscle relaxant I would have a convulsive Grand Malesque (although I'd never had one that bad before only loss of control and contorting) seiziure so I begged for a chance to calm down (Lots of coping skills, meditation, and things like putting my inner wrists together to increase left right cerebral hempispheric communication and increasing awareness of arousal levels so they'll go down, and I promised I'd go into an isolation ward quietly if they'd leave me in there to calm down, and they said yes so I went in quietly and then was cornered and stabbed anyway... Absolute screaming convulsive seiziure. I'm jealous of epileptics in a way, at least they aren't conscious when it happens... :(
And that was just the beginning. Lies breed more lies, y'know. I didn't start lying but I can definitely see why people would... :/
And when I went into "bizzare behavior" (right there on the pamphlet) from the sodium valproate overdose... Panic response pushing against a bizzare drug induced psychosis where you have no sense of time... Very difficult to communicate in that state, when I was talking to my dad and trying to organize things I had to continually remind him that because I was in such an altered state my theory of mind was utterly altered for us to be able to communicate at all and I needed to communicate since there was no way I could go organize paying rent in the two hours supervised leave that was the only leave I was allowed other than 15 minute smoke breaks.
Oh Welp... le'sigh, If I was manic on the 1 gram of sodium vaproate a day (before I got mindraped by the 1 1/2 gram overdose) in the psychiatric ward then every time I work I will definitely be manic because behaviouraly I will be exactly the same as I was in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Place. Just as cheerful and even more physically active although probably a bit less confrontational unless it's part of the job since I won't be constantly reliving [TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCE]. And maybe the triggering won't be quite as bad
Not that I can work anyway I know I'm totally and utterly disabled now and will be for several years at the very least -- that's if I'm lucky, and given I have my mothers crazy and my mothers side of the family's physiology I've probably only got a max of 20 years left anyway ('specially since I smoke) before I die horribly of cancer so it's not like I'm going to be much of a burden on the system even if my prognosis is horrible -- and even with this level of mood stabilization that's a pretty painful admission, but hey... What can you do?
I know I'm a Manic Depressive (AKA good old classic Bipolar 1), but that doesn't mean that my treatment in that ward has made me better... I'd like to congratulate it for managing to take me from having a chance of regaining functioning to being totally and utterly disabled...
Even on lithium behaviorally apathetic and depressed and since I'm real sensitive to my internal mood state as a coping mechanism, utterly confused by my internal mood bouncing around without rhyme or reason I'd force myself to apply for jobs sometimes even though I had no chance of even getting an interview, because I desperately wanted to work even though it had gotten to the point where even though I love long walks -- my definition of a short walk is most peoples definition of a long walk, so you can imagine what my long walks are like -- I didn't dare take them because I had a mortal fear of wandering off, perspiring too much and keeling over from lithium toxicity... Now I'm just a disabled wreck...
le'sigh...
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| And Another Draft In Progress |
[26 Mar 2010|06:50pm] |
[This one is friends only since I plan to use it as an experiment in blogging on facebook hrrrm maybe I'll change my mind actually yeah I will... It's public as well]
Blogging On Facebook... An Experiment.: A thesis on the pathologies of "authoritative" or more correctly Authoratative Knowledge Production in This Modern World and how it relates to attempts at Internet Censorship. (Below the fold is the first post) So follow me below the fold *swoosh*
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There are two kinds of Knowledge Production. The kind that attempts to strip away at the Illusion of Consensus Reality, eg. Science[1] and also Mysticism (eg. Plato's analogy of the Cave, The Way that can be spoken of is not the True Way, All composite things pass away. Strive for your own liberation with diligence, etc etc etc etc etc so on so forth y'know the drill). The Quest for The Holy Grail, The Real.
Then there is the kind that attempts to build Sandcastles upon Sandcastles upon?
Ok, that's a massive oversimplification ofcourse (of-course (of course (off course?))) the totality of our "knowledge" comes from Creative Destruction. The Battering Rams of Reality smashing against Ivory Towers. The Collective Unconsciousness[1] Rising Again And Again against the De-Nile of the Egotic Self. Or even just that big G'[D-Word]ed Waaaave that comes in and knocks down your Sandcastle and now you have to rebuild the G'[D-Word]ed thing, y'know, if you can be bothered. De-Construct, alter, Re-Build whatever it takes to keep it standing against the Waaave, The Real, but Tsunami's always leave a trail of destruction... Maybe you should just move to Higher Ground?
Lost At Sea? That's alright, just keep travelling. Sooner or later you should hit land (y'hope). Watch out for Horse Latitudes though, or sooner or later you might end up beating a dead? Then you're going to have to eat it or throw it overboard.
I'd suggest eating it. It's not a good square meal, but food is food and when you're becalmed and in the doldrums you never know how long you'll be there and even when the wind comes there'll be The Devil to pay and you gotta watch out or you'll be overwhelmed and might even keel over. And where-ever you are there's always the risk of being taken aback or finding yourself overbeared. But then, what can you do? You just got to keep your eye and ear to the scuttlebut, keep everything aboveboard, and if you find yourself over a barrel or the cat is really let our of the bag? Perhaps it's time to hang an Albatross around The Captain's neck.
Just fly as the crow flies keep an eye out from the crow's nest and you'll hit land I guess. Good luck!
Anyway I digress... May I be blunt? None of us have any clue on what's going on. Any claim by an individual no matter what kind of Authority they are is just another opinion, and Opinions are Subjective. Knowledge Production is a Collective Endeavour, but, it is also a Collective Endevour. And the two Dueling Dualistic Dualing processes are combined one Monistic process. Two Monad's in one.
What is a Monad?
A Monad is an individual process. One of the fundamental mistakes of the Collective Hallucinations is thinking that things are things. Until we were here to percieve "individual" thingies as things, and give "individual" things names there was only one Monad. That Monad was what we would understand as everything, Every-"Thing". Or perhaps it began with animals when their neural networks became complex enough for them to perceive External Qualia, thingies even if only at the moment of perception of those thingies fleeting thingies that only exist while percieved, and when those neural networks become complex enough to perceive Internal Qualia then those fleeting thingies became aspects of the imaginary Internal Qualia thingies, in the sense of Platonic Forms, which I suspect is what came first. After all, to a shark a fish is just another fish, and a human paddling on a surfboard is a seal. Then came sociality
In Essence things became things in the sense we understand them when they gained Thingieness.
[1]Real Sciences do it better, most soft "sciences" are Cargo Cults. They build the airstrips, they build the control towers, they march up and down with their wooden rifles and of course the Cargo just won't come because you need the infrastructure and praxis that go with the airfield to deliver the Cargo, y'know.
[2]Because the unconscious-subconscious always makes the decision then we attempt to rationalize it, and fundamentally we are psychosocial creatures (like ants or bees) hallucinating that we are (only) conscious individuals.
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| I AM NOT BIPOLAR! I AM A GODDAMNED MANIC-DEPRESSIVE! |
[26 Mar 2010|06:36am] |
[Writing for me is a release, I like to write poetry even when I writing prose. Especially when writing prose, and there are multiple perhaps infinite readings to any text just look at all the various commentaries that you find for ancient texts by various influential authors; Sun Tzu, Plato, etc etc... And then you get texts that I absolutely adore, like the Tao Te Ching, or the Principia Dischordia where the authorial intent appears to be a zen koan in itself utterly cryptic for people who read it shrug and give up but utterly obvious to the people who sit down and study it for a while or just grok it first shot... For an example of how cryptic texts get sit down and go through various translations of the Tao Te Ching and if you're up for it do a character by character translation... So anyway now that I'm capable of thinking at all and capable of writing I'm going to be writing this post as I go... Posting it, then editing as things come to mind of the mood strikes me, I can't write as fast as I used to and I now have to carefully think about what I'm writing but at least I can write and at least I can get release.
That's what all good poetry is, from song lyrics to Shakespeare, great novels to the works of the great philosophers. Check what you can of This Book out on books.google.com... Pure Poetry, and it is, non-fiction.
Anywayz... I can't just slam things out like I used to whether I was in the mood, or not in the mood but hopping myself up on caffiene and cigarrettes, because I had something to say, like I used to. So writing this is going to take, parsley sage rosemary and? So I'm just'a gunna post this publically and hope I can hit edit on this post, so I'm drafting and editing this out in public as I go.
Pure release... Otherwise known as venting...]
Writing for me is a release, I couldn't write on lithium at all except for one poem I desperately crafted when I realized that I couldn't write I'd just lost the ability to judge my own writing because lithium is a dream world bubble where every bit of PTSD every bit of intensity of emotion you have is locked away until it snaps out as breakthrough mania, because there's no release valve and there's no real awareness of anything really.
You can't work through your emotions, you can't work through your moods on your own and in all honesty if you're a Manic-Depressive no-one cares if you're depressed, and the funny thing is that if you're aware of your triggers and you're in a stable enough situation you can just
If you're a Manic Depressive no-one cares if you're depressed, but if you seem the slightest bit "manic" boy o' boy do they care and they'll do anything to knock you out of it even if the solution is to make you depressed or worse. A guy I met while I was in the Monash. He was a Manic Depressive and he told me that. [He was a total pothead and he knew just like me that not sleeping was a major trigger (if not consciously) and the only thing that would get him to sleep for the good nights sleep was rohypnol (sp?) which his pdoc wouldn't prescribe him, he could and would do the same thing I'd do which was become a total recluse and push himself into utter depression which would avoid the Mania as long as he was in a stable situation and a safe enough environment. As in somewhere which he wasn't at risk of losing his bed (his mums) and could avoid people. He was very highly strung as a default state even with the meds he was on in the ward and was very clear about reporting to me that he used cannabis sativa for self medication to cut down on the aggressive tendancies stress edginess etc because it mellowed him out and made it easier for him to deal with other people and for other people to deal with him. He expressed a desperate interest in getting off the public system and seeing a private psychiatrist who might at least care about how he was feeling and doing as opposed to just having a public pdoc decide he was smoking too much and chuck him in. It was pretty obvious he was disabled as far as functioning goes although if cannabis sativa were legal and he could smoke it to mellow him out as he worked I suspect he might be able to handle work, and since being around people gives social skills and coping with triggers with the assistance of psychoactive drugs whether psychopharmaceutical or street especially. but also just in general that are social gives the user templates to follow in their performance that allows them to also use those graces at least as an emergency coping skill enough to at least escape from that trigger, as long as they're some -- Tooo tired EXPAND and edit well laterz]
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| A Prayer For Rain |
[27 Aug 2009|09:40pm] |
There was a time for me
when writing was easy
I just had to wait for the mood
to take me and
I could write forever
Well perhaps not forever
but I remember when
the words like melange flowed
Must flow
I would write and write
until I couldn't sit still
then I would walk and walk
sipping on caffeine
chaining cancer
writing essays in my head
actually no my bad
writing then editing
the whole thing
in my head
I kid you fucking not
Goddamn I miss it
until every word
exactly where it should be
I typed them out
every sentence
Like a composer conducting his own symphony
feeling every crest and trough
every theme
every idea
The worst writers block
is the realization that
writing always reveals
more about yourself
than what you want to write
I realized that
one of the many things I learnt
about writing back then
but now it's killing me
it's not just that the words
won't come
The few that do just
scrutinized rejected
until nothing is left
So stripped of all art
Then to craft I must turn
Like a humble mason
cutting then placing stone
Like a great architect
Directing that work
I craft
My wish... Granted.
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| Ok... Fine... I'm Bipolar... |
[12 Apr 2009|11:57pm] |
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So ummm yeah... I just got out of the psych ward, and heh... It looks like I'm definitely bipolar.
At least to the extent that psychiatric illnesses are an imbalance in brain chemicals that the meds fix.
First night they gave me I think 25 mg of seroquel to sedate me a bit and get me to sleep.
Bad move, it punched my mood up to a nice 20 out of 10 and then I spent several hours running around the ward trying to tire myself out. Next day they put me on lithium, and I swear, my neurons and nerve fibres reacted to the lithium ions as if, like starving people to manna in the desert, or drops of water to those dying of thirst.
I've fucked up my life, and far more importantly I've been a pretty shit friend.
Forgive me?
Anyway if anyone actually wants to get in contact with me or suchlike. I'll have a friends only post following this one with contact details. Or you could just reply to this post or something.
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[06 Oct 2006|03:49pm] |
Hi kids,
I'd just like to remind you all that...
Anyone who supports Torture is by definition a Pervert.
This Public Service Announcement is brought to you courtesy of Reality.
Hope that helped....
Have a nice day...
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| Clichepagetica |
[19 Sep 2006|03:40am] |
O writer, O author, O poet, O scribbler... Heed me...
In vain dost thou seek thine own voice. In vain dost though seek an audience even as thouest findeth it.
For, verily, there is nothing new under the sun, and if thou dost succeed at all it is not by thine own design but only because thou standeth on the shoulders of giants.
A curse be unto thee that claim sciens on thine own scrawling. Yea, a curse... Thine words will be but sound and fury signifying nothing. The world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. Yet thou plays thine bit part as if thou wert Hamlet.
The tide riseth, and in vain thou sit before it. In vain dost thou cry stop. If thou moveth not then thou shalt surely drown. Yet thou sits. Fearing the mockery of the other fools arrayed beside thee... Coward!
Thine audience is the tide, and you moveth not with it. Surely O writer thou shalt soon be swept away. Out with the old, in with the new. Thus the wheel turns always.
Yea, O writer thou art thrice cursed; Thine audience moveth and thou see it not. Thine audience speaketh and thou hear it not. Thine rules bind thee and thou feels them not.
In much wisdom is much grief.
O writer, O author, O poet, O scribbler... How I sorrow for thee. For thou knows not the true power of words...
The light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not...
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[12 Aug 2006|11:21pm] |
Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men.
Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth,
Now the living timber bursts with the new buds
And spring comes round again. And so with men:
One generation comes to live, another dies away.--Iliad, Book 6
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[29 Jul 2006|11:31am] |
From the Nuremberg Diary:
We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.
"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."
"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."
"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
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[16 Apr 2006|04:53am] |
Yeah, yeah, whatever. Now why don't you all go fuck yourselves or something.
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[15 Apr 2006|12:25pm] |
[Ok doing this again in a better location, better format, and better written so hiding it from teh gooogles... Changing my mind, this is historical I guess...]
The city was laid out in geometric forms. Only hermeneutics could explain the twists and turns of the sewers, buildings, streets; their relations. Cantwell Crip woke up screaming and drenched in his sweat, as was usual. The dream of the fall already fading away. Rain on the window. Splattering water on the glass waiting for the sleeper to awaken and hear the noise they made. Cantwell ignoring the self-annihilating whispering raindrops, clutching his head in his hands, rocking like grass in the wind.
The alarm clock, a marvel of engineering designed to exacting specifications, flung against a wall moments after it goes off. The clock unharmed. Cantwell starts rocking again, but the motion is slowing.
"Incoming call. From Rosebud."
A genderless soothing voice says. Cantwell clenches his jaw then slowly counts to ten.
"Onscreen."
He grunts, and a shimmering square appears midair. It resolves slowly as a face appears within. Until a happy smiling young woman appears.
"Hey hey! Cripster, you're awake! and I was wanting to ask"
Cantwell cuts in.
"Yes, and what did my availability icon look like? Was it a red angry face with a storm cloud above it? Now what does a red angry face with a storm cloud above it mean exactly?"
Rosebud deflates for a split second then brightens.
"It means you're no longer asleep, and I was bored and got to wondering... Why weren't OPEC nations in the 20th and early 21st century..."
Cantwell stands up and starts pacing backwards and forth the large luminous square following him like a dog.
"... politically dominant? I mean they controlled the main physical economic resource of that period making them a prime candidate for a hydraulic empire."
Pausing to glare at the luminous square for a moment as if its mere existence was a personal insult, Cantwell sighs.
"If I tell you to go do your own research you're just going to play SomaCrack for an hour then come back and ask me again aren't you?"
"Cripster, my most cunning boojum. However did you guess?"
Rosebud flutters her lashes, blinks and leans into the screen. Cantwell relents.
"Ok. Ok... It's because OPEC were never a political entity. They were are cartel, and the ruling elite of the component politicogeographic entities were more interested in maintaining their wealth and social position than reshaping the politicoscape of the era."
"Oh how delightfully Marxist of you Cripster! You're such an curious anachronism. You know that? Oh! and you're grinding your teeth again. Why do you do that? It's so... primitive... And dare I say it?... Anachronistic. Have you heard that back then people used to dress up and conduct these things called renfairs where they pretended they were in an earlier era?"
Mid teeth grind Cantwell catches himself.
"How many times have I told you I'm not a Marxist? It's merely that the Marxist-Hegelian dialectic combined with Nietzschian analysis is the best metanarrative within which to approach the Second Axial Age. It's impossible to be a Marxist in the modern era, the economic assumptions behind it are irrelevant. And..."
Cantwell realising that Rosebud is sniggering stalks over to his bed, sits down, and rests his head into the heel of his palm, elbow propped against knee.
"Why did you call me anyway? Really?"
All of a sudden serious Rosebud replies.
"Well, it's just that the various Lunar and Asteroid mining Corps are having joint board meetings. Rumours on the line say that they're putting together a merger agreement and will be bringing it to their respective Stakeholder meetings within the fortnight."
"Shit!"
Says Cantwell Crip, and walks through a wall.
To be continued...
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| Poets in the oddest places. |
[15 Apr 2006|01:10am] |
Three years ago, I was a Marine Corps captain on the Iraqi/Kuwaiti border, participating in the invasion of Iraq. Awestruck, I heard our howitzers thunder and watched artillery rockets rise into the night sky and streak toward Iraq — their light bathing the desert moonscape like giant arc welders.
Coming home — disillusioned
By Christopher H. Sheppard
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| Us Kids Say The Darndest Things. |
[21 Feb 2006|12:09pm] |
Sometimes you just have to have side-splitting exchanges with people you don't know from adam.
The comment:
In other terms... (none / 1)
Anyone who thinks dialectically is an enemy of liberalism, hence a supporter of totalitarianism? Get a grip!
by Hoipolloi Cassidy on Mon Feb 20, 2006 at 03:24:05 PM PDT
My reply:
Only if (none / 0)
Only if they forget the hegelian dialectic and produce an antithesis based on ressentiment.
Yes yes, I'm a horrible person; But if you don't understand what I just said then you probably don't understand what you just said. ;)
Don't be a fuckhead! HTH k thnx
by kraant on Mon Feb 20, 2006 at 04:09:19 PM PDT
The punchline:
Kant-rant, (none / 1)
You remind me of a favorite graffito exchange of the '60s: "Bourgeois, tu n'as rien compris! - C'est parce que tu n'as rien dit..."
by Hoipolloi Cassidy on Mon Feb 20, 2006 at 04:17:31 PM PDT
It took over an hour to stop the sniggering fit.
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