Laminated Book of Dreams (a reprint of a finer work)

I have a Volkswagen. Technically, I have two Volkswagens. A 2007 GTI of which I am very fond and a 1978 Beetle convertible. There’s a long history with the ‘78 and despite our differences from time to time, it’s a relationship I find near impossible to sever. My parents have been very kind in minding it when I’ve been living in the UK and now that I’m living in CA, we all thought it was time I came and fetched it. I looked online and called a bunch of people to see about having it transported out here. Estimates were in the $1,000+ range for having someone put it on a lorry and bring it out. Estimates were also very expensive for getting a car trailer and towing it myself. So, I made the decision to drive it all the way out to CA from MA. I know it was a bit of a gutsy move driving a potentially unreliable 30 year old car 3,000 miles in a short period of time, but I’m only young once and I have (near) absolute faith in the bug. Between ms. mosephine and I, we managed to figure out a way to time the trip in such a way to visit with a bunch of people and also spend Easter with my family (I think my mum liked that a lot). This plan, sadly, involved ms. mosephine and I to walk different paths and only briefly intersecting at Easter. She would not be accompanying me on the trip out to CA.

I started out on the Monday afternoon and went from Boston to Western MA where I met up with a longtime friend of mine who I consider a brother. I absolutely had to meet his new baby and spend some time catching up. I’m going to throw in a gratuitous pitch here, and, in case you’re curious, I have no shame in doing so. His band, The Aeon Saga, are doing well and really starting to make a name for themselves. If you’re a fan of metal, you should check them out. Speaking of metal bands you might like, also check out my cousin’s band, Desiccation. They’ve won some high school battle of the bands thing with a Boston radio station and are getting some good press. Right, shout outs are now down, the story may continue.

Got on the road properly after a nice breakfast and a good chat. I do realise that Boston to Northampton, MA does not a long trip make, but I really wanted to test the waters with the bug before I committed to a long haul across the US. There were other rules. No massive burns on speed. Yes, the car can cruise well at 70-75, but it’s more likely that something will go wrong so I was doing my best to keep it sub 70. Anyway, it didn’t take me long to get to New York.

New York was a pretty drive and one thing of particular note that I saw was the 4-truck orgy driving along at great speed.

I though about stopping at Niagara Falls when I passed through Buffalo, but ms. mosephine has not seen them as well, so I wanted to go with her as well. I know it’s a bit soppy, but there are just some things better done with company. Shortly after passing up that opportunity, Pennsylvania was welcoming me. This may sound insulting to those of you fond of Northern PA, but I didn’t really see anything terribly fascinating traveling through, so we move swiftly forward to Ohio, which, apparently, has so much to discover.

I had not been to Ohio before so I quickly discovered that it was raining in Ohio. I managed to get to just South of Cleveland before I called it quits for the night. “South?” you might ask, “but aren’t you going West?” Yes, that’s right, I am going West, but there was a small detour (adding 200 miles to my 3000 mile trek, but never-ye-mind). This diversion brought me to Kentucky

“Kentucky? What’s worth the diversion to Kentucky” I hear your elitist fake-America latte-drinking socialist bourgeois filth utter. Oh ho ho. What indeed…

I really felt like I absolutely must stop and see this and a pitiful extra 200 miles was not a deterrent. I figured at the very least, it would be a fun little excursion. Sadly, because I had to absolutely be sure to leave some disaster time in the remainder of my travels, I couldn’t devote too much to time this sojourn in KY.

And now for a section I like to call:

The Creation Museum (or, a lesson in self-restraint)

I would like to make this really very clear from the start. I did not go there to make fun of the people there or belittle their beliefs. I did anticipate the likely prospect of getting thrown out, but I wasn’t going to go out of my way. Taking that picture had already caused a small exchange of bad looks. Someone in a rather large pickup was coming out of the gate just after I had finished taking the picture and was crossing the road back. He’d got out into the road and then spotted me and backed up again just to glare at me for a while before driving off again. I think it was only when he’d worked out that I was intending on going in that he’d let me off the hook. So I drove in and parked up. The car already got some funny looks and when I emerged, I certainly had the worried looks from good little Christian children and their parents alike. The Hell-bringer has cometh.

So, I arrived and I would like to say that the people staffing the place were really friendly and very few of them even seemed to bat an eyelash at me. It’s always comforting to see people at places more likely to breed the exclusion-type behaviour being really rather friendly and accepting of others differing walks of life. Some of the other patrons were a little less so, but that’s their business.

After I had sorted out my ticket and what my plan was for seeing the exhibits, I really had to use the loo. I mention this only because I think I had inadvertently managed to terrify a boy with my looking exactly like (what later I would see as an exhibit) was the “ideal” of the pits of society. There was definitely some interchange with his mother about me complete with pointing and the likes. He honestly looked terrified. Moving on.

Their opening exhibit was one of an paleontological dig.

The chap on the the left sporting the orange and rather fetching white beard was apparently a Creationist Paleontologist… his counterpart, a Carbon-Dating Conspiratorialist. The exhibit was a slow introduction to the various straw-men and conflated arguments that would become more extraordinary as one progressed through the museum. Like any good argument, the first step is to convince people that you are being reasonable. It’s much easier to accept things far from reach if one can be convinced to accept the steps along the way. The argument is this: The difference between these two professional gentlemen is their starting points. The guy on the right started from the viewpoint that millions of years ago, there were dinosaurs and then some event or series of events lead to their extinction and were are left with fossil records that were created in such a manner. The Creationist comes from the starting point that the dinosaurs co-existed with man before the Great Flood and that event cause their extinction and buried their bodies under as the waters receded, protecting them against scavengers and so on while their flesh decomposed, leaving us with decent fossils. Their argument sets up the rest of the museum because you are presented with this argument in such a way that it is possible to see this and say, “that’s entirely reasonable… they are just looking at the same record and developing differing thoughts based on perspective. The creationist perspective is equal to the evolutionary perspective in terms of scientific credibility.”

Throughout the next section, there were a lot of “Human Reason vs. God’s Word” illustrations. The whole idea is really to set up the seeds of acceptance that the Creationist perspective is a valid scientific theory because from a certain perspective there is a logical series of events that is not impossible. Around the corner, they really kicked off the Christian proselytising with life-sized likenesses of religious figures.

This section mostly dealt with the history of society coming to question the word of God and also a criticism of various religious sects on appeasing the philosophical questionings of the word of God. This acceptance of the societal questioning of the Christian way is obviously the reason that society is now filled with, apparently, people like me and worse!

Somehow, we’ve grown into a society that can accept that only 1 in 4 (i believe that was the number they pulled out) of teens that attended church continue to do so after they leave home. It is also why in England 0.5% of the population will be continuing to attend church in only a few years’ time. As we all know, church-going is the only possible indication that people are going to be good people. What does this all have to do with Creationism? Well, by an ever-growing culture of question Christianity, we no longer can accept that Christianity may have the answers to tough biological, geological and chemical questions.

After that came a room filled with video displays

Each of the displays showed some biological event and was explaining how the inability of science to fully explain and recreate some detail of this biological wonder was proof of the existence and power of the Almighty. One really stuck out to me, so I shall use it as example of what really summed this whole affair up to me. The eye. So miraculous is the eye that the finest of cameras cannot replicate its elegance and function. Self-cleaning. Self-lubricating. Converts light to electrical impulses that our magnificent and wondrous grey-matter process the images. And, can be constructed in the womb… Therefore, the only possible creator of this most magnificent object is the Lord Almighty. Each eye is lovingly hand-crafted by the Lord and can be yours from this very special TV offer for only $19.99 plus shipping and handling. This, like the other propositions in this room is filled with minor distortions of reality and then using the distortion as proof of, as they see it, the only logical other conclusion. The eye itself: It is not self-cleaning nor self-lubricating. That is the job of the tear ducts. Without them, a separate system with a clear function, the eye would be neither clean nor lubricated. Also, converting light to electronic impulses is exactly what the CCD in the digital camera with which I was taking all these pictures does. I admit, however, that I’m pretty certain that Canon does not make use of wombs in making their cameras, so they got me on that one, but I’m not really sure I’d by a “womb-spawned” digital camera. Eyes are formed during gestation because of genetic material indicating that’s how a cell should behave. Another panel tries to demonstrate that DNA is impossible to have been created by any other means than an Intelligent Designer by using conflated analogies to the development of language. (Everyone spoke the same language until God punished them for the Tower thing when he “confused” their language so no one working on it could communicate with each other). So, even if DNA was the instruction for the behaviour of the cell, God wrote the DNA.

…and Adam and Eve co-existed with the dinosaurs.

Then we had the room of horrors.

They also made a big deal of the Great Flood as the massive global event that could explain things that science apparently can only explain by a massive global event. Like a flood. Now, my thing on this is pretty simple. Science may only be able to explain certain occurrences by a massive global event, but that does not equate to the existence of a God or Gods because it lends credibility to a section of a book. Way back in the day, humans created mythologies to explain the unexplainable. I remember as a child… “Why does it rain” “God is sad and he is crying. When he is happy, the sun will shine.” That is how mythology is created. Because science turns around and says “ah yes, the plants need rain and sun to grow strong” doesn’t mean that suddenly the mythology is correct. Making the case that way is called a straw man…

Anyway, there was a whole lot more that they conflated and distorted. It was not all like that though. One panel stuck out in particular:

“We’re All One Blood”

I think that’s a pretty good message. Onwards.

Mostly, there was little of outstanding interest along the way through Indiana and Illinois. I did go through Champaign, Il, hometown to a good friend and I was kind of curious about where he came from. Curious indeed. Driving across Nebraska was terrible. It was very windy and because it was a hideous cross-wind, I couldn’t even use the lorries as cover very well. Getting to Wyoming was a god-send… but… wait

oh… and then

A blizzard. Great. I got to Laramie, WY and they’d already closed the Eastbound road. My windscreen wipers had disintegrated so I had to find a place to get some more. Apparently, the local newspaper guy had seen it sitting their collecting snow and thought it was a great picture. So, I think my car will be in the Laramie Boomerang. Enjoy guys, enjoy. I made it out before they could close the roads on me and got to Rawlins, WY where the weather was better. I passed an upturned lorry the next day

The rest of Wyoming was beautiful and uneventful. And Utah was pretty good too. Driving out of Salt Lake City was interesting for about the first 10 minutes. Then it was just hellish. but it ended… eventually.

By the time I got to Reno, NV, I was so desperate to get home that I decided I would just push through the mountains and do the 4 hours or so that I had to go. The road down to Sacramento from the peak Sierra Nevada pass is super fun. In the dark. Yeah. Also, the bug hit a momentous occasion on the travels:

Apart from someone nearly running into the back of me in Vallejo, the trip was fine. A little spot of engine trouble from Sacramento, but I’m ok with that. I think it’s minor troubles with this crappy distributor I put in last spring and I shall be swapping it out soon. That is all.

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Ok. I think I’m going to have to get my rant on.

The thing I got on my mind came about because of an article that was posted about 5 Gitmo detainees admitting to planning the whole September 11th 2001 affair. The poster suggested that this was the nail in the coffin to The Truthers’ arguments that there’s something suspicious about the WTC building collapses (Just to be clear: I’m not a big conspiracy guy, but I do think that there’s something not quite right there). I laughed at the posting because I thought it was ridiculous. The very notion that people likely tortured beyond their sanity could be believed in whatever they said is laughable. The Washington Post did a reasonable 5 things piece on the Myths of Torture. The ideas that torture works or that people will say anything under torture are mentioned as myths with cursory information (more can be found by googling the sources and studies). The article actually makes a good point (said in a weird way, I think) that the “problem of torture” comes from the prisoners that do not have information. “The torture of the informed may generate no more lies than normal interrogation, but the torture of the ignorant and innocent overwhelms investigators with misleading information.”

Now that I’ve got that point made… Someone commented back along the lines of “If that’s what it takes to get the truth… I’d say it was worth it to torture them.” Aghast, I replied back that if they were American, I would find it hard to believe that they were, in fact, American at all. The Founding Fathers of that once great nation had little love for the idea of torture and less for anyone who would actually perpetrate such a villainous act. I found this chap to be particularly succinct.

Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner]. . . I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause… for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country. - George Washington

I think this makes a rather compelling case for investigation and prosecution of the Bush Administration and any and all soldiers responsible for carrying out those orders. I am also rather fond of this.

Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites. - Thomas Jefferson

Fools *and* hypocrites. I think maybe we should try to be a little less of both. It was these people’s ideals on which America was founded and it is in these people’s names that these disgraces were performed? Or are we doing this in Jesus’s name or some other notion. I’m pretty sure that Jesus of all people would be so hot to trot on the old torture affair. I will leave this topic with one more.

Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it. - John Quincy Adams

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Vienna Teng:

7 Apr 2009 (Tue)

7:30 pm

Somerville Theater Somerville MA Somerville Theater With Ben Sollee and The Paper Raincoat. [ event info ] [ buy tickets ] 55 Davis Square Somerville, Massachusetts 02144 617.625.4088

“Real plumbers are named Mario”

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What. The. Hell. Is. Going. On. Here.

This article came to my attention only moments ago and I am literally feeling queasy. I also was surprised to find out about this lovely gem.

A quick little round up then…

A terror attack perpetrated, not by foreign agents of death and doom, but by white American conservatives on American soil… against worshipers in their place of worship… including children. Children! You Fucking Pricks! And a fear and hate mongering film to make sure that you can go to sleep with a clear conscience after spending your days gassing Mosques.

Yes, America has free speech and, as far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing that says that one isn’t entitled to say pretty much whatever they want, but I think there’s some limitations when it insights violence or riots. But the most important part of all of this is that this past Friday, 300 people including Children were directly persecuted for their religious beliefs on American soil.

The America of old said “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” The new America says “Fuck you.”

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Watch this documentary on the state of the election process. Maybe even give them money.

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8:00 : I am rudely awakened by the instructions to school children being presented over a loudspeaker by the world’s most chipper woman. Thoughts of maiming and dismemberment enter my otherwise idyllic dream.

8:01 : Dream turns towards the darkness complete. Iron maidens are employed to deal with the clearly heretical youths. Discipline is assured.

8:10 : Strangely the voice over the loudspeaker seems to be making this stuff up without a script. Starts to “hum” and “ha” over what to say next. Wreaks terribly of someone who has 35 minutes of allotted loudspeaker time for which they only had 10 minutes of material.

8:15 : There are now instructions on what is permissible on the school grounds. It occurs to me that rules set only by a non-comprehensive list of “thou shall not”s is a bit of a weak thing. Surely, it’s a short list to say what is permissible on school grounds.

It is only permissible to be a good student and stay out of trouble.

As it stands, one might be able to say, “well, I know you said that there were no knives permitted on school grounds, but this is a scimitar… it’s not a knife at all.” Bloody semantics will get them every time.

8:20 : I’ve started to think that maybe I’m in the crowd of children be fore-disciplined for any potential future wrong-doings. I remember why I hated grade school.

8:21 : I decide that my dreams are perturbed irreparably and I shall go find some solace on the intertubes.

8:30 : I make it to the intertubes to find that no one else has had to suffer with this today. This wonderful beautiful place in which we now live had to have a down side. I think I found it.

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“But this universe consists of paired dualities. What is the converse of authority? Mr. Rico.”

He had picked one I could answer. “Responsibility, sir.”

“Applause. Both for practical and mathematically verifiable moral reasons, authority and responsibility must be equal - else a balancing takes place as surely as current flows between points of unequal potential. To permit irresponsible authority is to sow disaster; to hold a man responsible for anything he does not control is to behave with blind idiocy.“

(Robert A. Heinlein - “Starship Troopers”)

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currently, ms. mosephine and i are looking for an apartment in San Francisco. We’ve spent the last 2 weeks as good people in San Francisco do, trolling craigslist.org and going to open houses and all that jazz trying to find a flat that works with our requirements and price range. We have a list of requirements… negotiable and non-negotiable. For our maximum price, it had better have all of them.

An apartment came up in SOMA and it was in out price range, had all of our requirements, and, though the location was not necessarily ideal, it was at such a price that we were willing to overlook that detail. The pictures looked pretty good. So, I sent an email off to the renter asking to arrange a time for a viewing:

From: simsea
Subject: 2br - Luxury loft-style condo in the heart of SOMA w/ 2 enclosed bdrms
Date: July 8, 2008 8:42:18 AM PDT
To: hous-######@craigslist.org

Hello,

I am very interested in the apartment advertised on craigslist.org. Is it possible to arrange a viewing today before 3 pm or tomorrow?

Regards,
simsea

Short and to the point. I got the following email in reply the next day:

From: [some email address]
Subject: Re: 2br - Luxury loft-style condo in the heart of SOMA w/ 2 enclosed ...
Date: July 9, 2008 6:55:08 AM PDT
To: simsea

Hi,

The apartment is available now, i am the owner, fully furnished, i can rent it unfurnished too, all the utilities are included (water, garbage, electricity, heat..etc). Pets are allowed. This is not a share or something, the whole apartment is for rent and the price per month is $#,###. I am asking for 1 month’s rent payment plus 1 month as security deposit, the 1 month is for the 1st and the deposit will be returned at the end of the lease. So, it’s a total of $#,###. If my terms are ok with you please reply back, if you have questions please free to ask. More photos here: [link removed]

Thank you
Maria Clinton

Ok, all the important information is there… also, all utilities are included!? Sweetness… then i asked the all too critical question, “what’s wrong with it?” So, i sent another email back while i pondered that thought:

From: simsea
Subject: Re: 2br - Luxury loft-style condo in the heart of SOMA w/ 2 enclosed ...
Date: July 9, 2008 8:29:44 AM PDT
To: [some email address]

Hello Ms. Clinton,

I agree with your terms and would prefer an unfurnished apartment. For when can we arrange a viewing? I am available this afternoon, tomorrow until the afternoon and all of Friday.

Regards,

simsea

So, then I get this email:

From: [some email address]
Subject: Re: 2br - Luxury loft-style condo in the heart of SOMA w/ 2 enclosed ...
Date: July 10, 2008 3:23:11 AM PDT
To: simsea

Hi again,

Just a few more info. Equal size-2 bedrooms/2 bathrooms, 1300 sq. ft., washer/drier in unit, A/C, dishwasher, parking–1 spot included in the rent, safe neighbourhood, very quiet, no noise, close to transportation and everything else. It’s fully furnished, but i can rent it unfurnished also, same price if unfurnished, will use a moving company. As i said, pets are allowed. Building has maintenance-included in the price. The length of the lease is flexible: long/short term.
Now, regarding the transaction itself, i have to tell you that i bought this apartment as an investment and i’ve decided to rent it to cover the mortgage rates. I live in New Jersey and i have noone there to show you the apartment.
But, if you’re truly determined to rent an apartment, i will fly out there and show you the apartment. The thing is that i am an interior designer and i am swamped at work, we have to schedule a date when to come and show it to you, could be this days.
Let me know what your thoughts are and will go from there and, if you could tell me a little something about you, would be ok.
As for me i am an interior designer, i am 45 years old, not married, i am very kind, loving and i like long trips.
Can you, please, tell me an exact day and hour when you could be at the apartment?

Wish you all the best,
Maria Clinton

This email made me invent the name “crazy lady.” Also, the suspicion meter is off the scale on this. Doesn’t the “i am 45…” line kinda make you think I was hitting the craigslist personal ads instead? So, in earnest, I sent an email back thinking this is really weird:

From: simsea
Subject: Re: 2br - Luxury loft-style condo in the heart of SOMA w/ 2 enclosed ...
Date: July 10, 2008 8:49:21 AM PDT
To: [some email address]

Hello,

We am very determined to rent an apartment.

[snip…]

Does some time like Saturday 1pm work for you? If it could be sooner, I would be thrilled, but I am a very patient. I would like to hear your thoughts on availability.

Regards,
Andrew

Ms. mosephine and I went to dinner and pondered how weird this all was. I figured that if all is as this Clinton woman claims, then she’s probably someone who hangs out on Ok Cupid. So I thought maybe I’d have some friends of mine who have accounts have a look. I then thought that google will work just as well. I narrowed the search down to a page that someone posted in Hoboken, NJ detailing this exact scenario, but with the place of abode being San Francisco instead of New Jersey. He screamed SCAM. Our feelings we in agreement. Shame. Then comes the absolute hook:

From: [some email address]
Subject: Re: 2br - Luxury loft-style condo in the heart of SOMA w/ 2 enclosed ...
Date: July 12, 2008 1:42:13 PM PDT
To: simsea

I am having second thoughts, i am not feeling comfortable to fly out there without an ensurance first.
I’ve been burned before and if you want i will explain. All i need from you is to show good
faith, that you are serious about renting the apartment. I am having a very hard time with my boss in order to let me take a few days off, she said she will let me do it finally ,but i don’t want to just fly out there for nothing. My proposal for you is to wire the $#,### to a familly mamber or to a friend of yours via money gram, then e-mail me the receipt that money gram will give you, do not pick up the funds before i verify with money gram, if you’d pick up the funds before i verify with money gram the whole thing would be for nothing and will return to square one. If they’ll confirm that the funds is there i will contact you and let you know that i verified and then you can pick up the funds back from money gram and i’ll book the next flight and will fly out and meet you to show you the apartment. I would feel more comfortable knowing that you have the money and you are a serious tenant. When you make the money gram transfer deduct the fees from the $#,###. We will meet there and show you the apartment, if you don’t like it i will refund you for the money gram fees. If you like the apartment you pay me, we sign the lease, i will let the keys to you and you can move.

You can find a Money Gram location here:
http://www.moneygram.com/eFindUs/findUs.do?countryCode=US&languageCode=en

Thank you

P.S. Maybe you don’t know what money gram is, money gram is the fastest way to send money all over the world and they have 1000s of agencies all over the world. You have to know that for making a money gram transfer you need cash and to go in person with the cash to a money gram location and make the transfer, you have to have your IDs with you. That’s why i choose money gram and i think that this is best to make proof of funds in my opinion.

Kind regards,
Maria

Yeah. Sure.

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we're still alive. We had a slightly rocky start and instead if driving the bug, we had to leave it behind. It was being all meh and not running to my level of confidence. Suffice to say that I'm disappointed, but happy it decided to do that when we were still in eastern MA rather than somewhere further along. So we're making a great adventure with 2.0 litres of turbo-charged madness. Awesome.

Anyway, we've been to upstate New York, and then Shenendoah, Virginia, and now we're in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The whole eastern seaboard is being a bit of a dash as we have people we're seeing so it puts us to agreed times. It's good because we want off this coast.

More to come.

I went to the midnight showing of the new Indiana Jones film, The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I wasn’t expecting much, to be honest, as it would appear that the only person that screened the film that liked it was R. Ebert., and he, apparently, thought it was the greatest thing since soap was invented somewhere around 2500 B.C.

To its credit, the film had a lot in the way of movement and there was rarely a dull moment. Plenty of tense action scenes very much like the old Indy films we remember from way back. The filmmakers spent an awful lot of effort to make it look like the old films. Shot on cellulose film instead of digital, favouring stuntmen over C.G. effects where possible. These are definitely to its credit in terms of aesthetic viewability.

In terms of the plot, however, we have a problem. During the film, homage is paid to the previous films. The opening scene had me giggling about “that’s where they stored the Arc of the Covenant” and sure enough, we get a glimpse (to, I might add, the cheers of rowdy movie goers. At midnight, all movie goers are a bit rowdy t’would seem). We get a glimpse of a picture of the eternally sexy Sean Connery as Henry Jones Sr. We’re treated to some classic Indy moments and mannerisms. Sadly, it’s not Indy versus the Nazis, but rather Indy versus the Commies. We are unfortunately dealing with an amalgam of all Indy plots that came before but this time, for good measure, we’re going to throw on a good dose of…

I don’t know how to say this without being a bit of a spoiler for those of you who actually care about spoilers…

What’s the one thing you can think of that would make you look Indy in the face and say “you’ve got to be fucking kidding me”?

First, let me say that the setups are bloody ridiculous from the word go.

Secondly, let me say that i didn’t mind when it was all in good humour.

Lastly, when you figure out the answer to the above question, you will probably be less inclined to agree with R. Ebert, and more inclined to say “Indy… how… could you?”

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Now, I don’t normally watch Hardball or any of the other shouting match political so-called debate shows (part of this is that I don’t own a television and I don’t spend my life looking for the shows that I’m allegedly “missing out on” because I don’t own a television), but this one was sent to me for the sheer comedy goldmine that lays within.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YK0d8ENS__c

Verdict: If you’re going to flap about historically loaded words, you ought to know to what they refer. “Appeasement” the way that President G. W. Bush made reference to it is a powerfully loaded word with specific connotations. Missing that is missing the real meaning of the thing. Bandying around words like “appeasement” without knowing their meaning in order to drive nails into political coffins is a dangerous game.

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VW decided that they’d poll everyone about everything (their mascot is a classic VW beetle, looks like late 50s model) and some handy person has added a “More Cowbell?” poll. You know what to do.

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“Rich People: God Bless Us. We deserve all the opportunities to make sure our country and our blessings continue to the next generation.” - H. R. Clinton.

I’m wondering if the Obamas were all sitting around watching Senator and Former First Lady, Hillary Clinton, on the O’Reilly television programme, and, when she utter those words, released a triumphant howl of “Oh Yes!” Not only does she want to paint Senator Obama as an elitist, out of touch with the hearts and minds of American families, but now she spreads her wings as an entitled elitist out of touch with the common people.

Bloody Plebs, eh?

I have to give O’Reilly a small amount of credit here. “I’m not a middle class family, I’m a rich guy.” Honest and to the point.

Lets be fair here, it’s not like Obama hasn’t said or done some nasty things during this campaign, but I have to admire that he stood up and said that it’s got kinda nasty, it’s time to stop, and it just goes to show that no one is immune to rolling around with the pigs from time to time.

The Age of Entitlement in America must end.

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“why are you making a giant English muffin?”

“because we’re making a giant eggs benedict.”

“ah, of course”

Did I take photographs? Of course I took photographs

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May I have your attention please?

Hillary Clinton thinks you are stupid. There are a number of reasons that I say this. Most recently, that she’s convinced you are all too stupid to notice that she’s been lying to you and covering up by smearing and distorting the truth some more, inventing controversy where there is none. As a more general rule, she thinks you are all too stupid to do anything for yourselves. You need her to do it for you.

Do you think that she is right?

[edit: added some links and one for good measure]

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I have been playing on Facebook. Despite the controversy surrounding their practices, I can still play scrabble with my friends around the globe and I can still vague keep / get back in touch with people that I’ve accidentally lost contact with over the years. I install very few “applications” because mostly they are idiotic and irritating.

Yes, I am an elitist.

Visual bookshelf seemed like a good idea. I’ve recently discovered that I am allowed and capable of reading for fun (reading previously did not really make that much sense to me if it wasn’t a technical paper or book) and visual bookshelf is a pretty neat way to keep track and hear other people’s thoughts on potential future reading materials. Lately, it’s decided to send me emails saying “you’ve been reading this book for a week now. Is this still the case?” which is a bit of a “you read so slowly! Taunt!” Ah well. My excuse is that I read in binges and those binges don’t necessarily fall conveniently at the ends of books. So, shush now, “Visual Bookshelf”.

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The first is that ms. mosephine and i (more ms. mosephine than i, but still) came up with a new product idea. Combination fax and shreader. Fax’n’shread 6000. Think of the possibilities! No? Oh well.

The second is that I opened a CafePress shop to spread my filth across the land. Currently, it is called “PopGoesArt” because I had “Pop Goes the Weasel” stuck in my head after a discussion at work about the most addictive song ever. Should you want to weigh in on the most addictive song ever discussion, feel free.

These are the contributions:

Blake: Thao “Bag Of Hammers” at http://www.myspace.com/thaomusic
Max: Bonnie Tyler “Total Eclipse of the Heart” (seconded by Dr. B)
Dusty: Ramones “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue”
Dr. B: Yo Gabba Gabba “Party In My Tummy”
Dr. B: Sesame Street “Ma Na Ma Na”
Simsea: Le Tigre “Deceptacon”
James: “Banana Phone”
Blake: Money Mark “Push The Button”

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“you know… Dark side of the moon makes so much sense when you’re eating cheese.” - max eskin

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Teilhard de Chardin described the idea of the “Omega Point” as the critical point of consciousness which draws the universe towards higher states of consciousness. In some ways, I think last night I had the experience of not the Omega Point, but of a point in the space-time continuum that… has… always happened. It is the beginning, a point in time that was inescapable, unavoidable… like a keystone in time where suddenly mysteries become transparent and the future, while unknown, is both terrifying and alluring.

I know my path and I will go forward.

Also, happy Valentine’s day to all you people. May your lives be filled every day with love and that you never value yourselves by who loves you, but by who you love.

Re-Evolution - The Shamen

“If the truth can be told so as to be understood it will be believed”

Human history represents such a radical break with the natural systems of biological organisation that preceded it that it must be the response to a kind of attractor or dwell point that lies ahead in the temporal dimension. Persistently western religions have integrated into their theologies the notion of a kind of end of the world. And I think that a lot of psychedelic experimentation sort of confirms this intuition. I mean it isn’t going to happen according to any of the scenarios of orthodox religion, but the basic intuition that the universe seeks closure in a kind of Omega point of transcendence is confirmed. It’s almost as though this object in hyperspace, glittering in hyperspace, throws off reflections of itself, which actually ricochet into the past, illuminating this mystic, inspiring that saint or visionary, and that out of these fragmentary glimpses of Eternity we can build a kind of a map of not only the past universe and the evolutionary ingression into novelty, but a kind of map of the future.

This is what Shamanism has always been about.

A Shaman is someone who has been to the end. It is someone who knows how the world really works, and knowing how the world really works, means to have risen outside, above, beyond the dimensions of ordinary spacetime and cozooistry and actually seen the wiring under the board: stepped outside the confines of learned culture and learned and embedded language into the domain of Wittgenstein called the unspeakable, the Transcendental presence of the Other, which can be sectioned in various ways to yield Systems of Knowledge which can be brought back into ordinary social space for the good of the Community. So in the context of 90% of human culture, the Shaman has been the Agent of Evolution, because the Shaman learns techniques to go between ordinary reality and the domain of the ideas: this higher dimensional continuum that is somehow parallel to us, available to us and yet ordinarily occluded to us by cultural convention out of the fear of the Mystery, I believe, and what the Shamans are, are people who have been able to de-condition themselves from the community’s instinctual distrust of the Mystery, and go into this bewildering Higher Dimension, and gain Knowledge, recover the jewel lost at the Beginning of Time, save souls, cure, commune with the Ancestors and so forth and so on. Shamanism is not a religion - it’s a set of techniques, and the Principle Technique is the use of psychedelic plants. What psychedelics do is they dissolve boundaries; and in the presence of dissolved boundaries One cannot continue to close One’s eyes to the ruination of the Earth, the poisoning of the Seas and the consequences of two thousand years of unchallenged Dominator culture, based on Monotheism, hatred of Nature, suppression of the Female and so forth and so on. So, what Shamans have to do is act as exemplars by making this cosmic journey to the domain of the Gaian Ideas, and then bringing them back in the form of Art, to the struggle to Save the World. The Planet has a kind of intelligence, that it can actually Open a Channel of communication with an individual human being. The message that Nature sends is transform your language through a synergy between Electronic culture and the Psychedelic Imagination; a synergy between Dance and Idea; a synergy between Understanding and Intuition, and dissolve the boundaries which your culture has sanctioned between you.

Become part of this Gaian Supermind.

I mean I think it’s fairly profound, it’s fairly Apocalyptic. History is ending, I mean we are to be the generation that witnesses the Revelation of the purpose of the Cosmos. History is the shock wave of the Eschaton. History is the shock wave of Eschatology. And what this means for those of us who will live through this transition into Hyperspace is that we will be privileged to see the greatest release of Concressed Change probably since the birth of the Universe. The twentieth Century is the shudder that announces the approaching Cataracts of Time over which our Species and the destiny of this Planet is about to be swept.

“If the truth can be told so as to be understood it will be believed”

The emphasis in House music and rave culture on physiologically compatible rhythms, and this sort of thing, is really the re-discovery of the art of Natural Magic with sound. That sound, properly understood, especially percussive sound, can actually change neurological states, and large groups of people getting together in the presence of this kind of music are creating a telepathic community, a bonding, that hopefully will be strong enough to carry the Vision out into the main stream of Society. I think the Youth culture that is emerging in the nineties is an End of the Millennium culture that is actually summing up Western Civilisation, and pointing us in an entirely different direction; that we are going to arrive in the Third Millennium in the middle of an Archaic revival which will mean a revival of these physiologically empowering rhythm signatures, a new Art, a new Social Vision, a new relationship to Nature, to Feminism, to Ego - all of these things are taking hold, and not a Moment too Soon.

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