Patriotism

Those who know me socially would likely find my getting all teary eyed over some archaic letter talking of patriotism about as probable as my joining a University Frat and doing keg-stands in an attempt to impress my female counter-parts "next door". I am not a "joiner" as it were, I don't belong to many things. I don't make the sort of commitments that bind me to a group, affiliation, or location. I find it muddles things, creates crossed loyalties and generally is a distortion of those concepts and aspects that really count. You see I'm a creature of principles and ideals. I believe that being able to live with yourself throughout the whole of your life is of more merit than being able to live your life longer. Belief is a weak word in this case, I breath this, I'd starve for it, it is my life and more because without it everything else I hold dear is at a loss. Knowing this about me perhaps you will further grasp why it is that I am unabashed when I say that the letter below, written as it was many years ago and to someone not myself, brought me to tears. Indeed it has done so more than once for I am grateful to every single soul who's ever drawn even a moments breath that is of this caliber and sentiment. I could spend many posts (and indeed to some measure I have already done so) expounding on what relevance liberty has to me. And this assuredly shall not be the last I mention her ringing name. For now through, let me simply leave you with the words who gave moment to this posting.
Sol

Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775.

No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertaining as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony. The questing before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.

Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House. Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free-- if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending--if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained--we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable--and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace-- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Mr. Henry, Patrick, sir I salute you.

Phantom light, True illumination

Fluorescent raindrops ride on the wind, ask me if they’ll ever be free again
neon laughter bleeds from their heart and my vision flickers from the rivers source
truth becomes me so mighty well that during times virtue there’re no lies to tell
careful then with what I mean do for we’re all living lives that are true

Serenity walks down a dusty road, where fancy resounds through stories untold
Corvus song through the whispering air gives voice to the riddles I’ve not answered here
Come again dragons with bat-wings of night, framed by the sky alive with moon light
a puzzle awaits us, how does the wood fold? Yet the puzzle of puzzles is from where this one flowed

Half-truths and hear-say their clamor ingrained, try to remind us we ‘ought be restrained’
but wanderlust beckons and throughout where I’ve trod, truth is the only thing real I’ve held.
Truths not a cold one, nor happy, nor sad, it runs through all currents so let us be glad
that it’s really our choice which truths that we have.

Darklight

A question of inverse hope. Feelings almost like seeking to fall, false hopes calling golden to shards of crisis. Seeking what I believe I should think I want in denial of what I seek. Galling my own thirsts for the sake of ‘acceptable’ or ‘attainable’. Once again the Phoenix embraces the ashes with longing for the coming fire. Again I am reborn in the realization that there’s nothing to lose by risking for to live without the risk of exultation is to live with less than nothing and even oblivion calls sweet clamoring when this becomes our case. To be hones in the face of desire and unflinching is a rare quality. I claim more of it and yet can choke on apprehension falling short of honest clarity. Compromise is not a grail but a degradement. Who so ever loves us will wish us well and our hungers come to be, and who so ever does not is unworthy of regard. Enlightened Self-interest; described by my hands as the search for those who shall accomplish my goals through finding their own soft and savage joys.
Seduction is after all the art of allowing someone to see how accomplishing your goals accomplishes their own, and you can be seductive about so much more than sex or romance.
Though there is something sensual in the practice of the art of seduction, the intimacy implicit in sharing personal exultation with another. Unfolding like the shadows of flame saturating the night, freedom is the only choice for it seeds all others and the choice to be less than, or un-free is a null of the choice it’s self and so choice is used to block choice and thus comes to naught. Like seeds planted and caused to rot the actions take place with the shadow consciousness draped over them like a rotting fog.
The whispered grace of night used to stifle, the glittering clarity of day used to blind.
When we feel something, when we know a truth or experience a catalytic questioning why is natural and good but should not be a hold on our choices to act. For even if we are rash in such actions they will show us now to be less so in future. Where if we chouse to avoid them all together we are burdened by their unaddressed presence from that point onward, like leaving an unwelcome guest waiting in another room of our house, we may not see or hear them but we still know they’re there and that presence changes things until we change (rather than merely ignore or avoid) that presence.
There is no price to pay too high for freedom, for what we pay if we surrender it is the virtue and eventually substance of every other thing we touch.

A statement I’m sure I will revisit many times.
Sol

The Silence of Fear

The Silence of Fear

Fear is just a sense of awareness that somethings not right

so of course I'm afraid, so of course I fight

striving, to live every moment without it

It is not that I hate the messenger,

fear it's self,

indeed I am grateful for these repeated and timely warnings of mindfulness

like it's cousin Pain I honor fear for the truth spoken, but I do not want to live beneath those words.

Pain may murmur sweet syllables, so long as they are small,

but fear and I agree,

its most beautiful moments

are silent.

My heart, in Spades

My heart, in Spades

Aches of unspent never worlds resonate through the buzzing composed of words and thoughts that sound to me like the panting breath of Bukowski's Tiger, echoes back smiles to sobs of all my unspent tears minted in some lost currency

Reflective, only the night is my mirror for I can pretend it's empty as I pretend to be full

hearing Jung speak in tongues of shadows and knowing where finally I've hidden truth in the petals of a Rose

face so beautiful it hurts and my clinched fists bleed down her thorns letting my veins cry for me

I speak to strangers hoping to never know them well enough for deception all the while seeking intimacy

Pangs of longing masquerades loss beneath the fissures of my hops untempered.

The words are my air, to die is to live as I reach for everything I've ever cared about, la petite mort a little taste of death to inoculate me against complacency the vulnerability of truth my balm to savvy self-fulfilling cynicism

caught off guard by my own passionate paradox

refusing to die without truly having lived, refusing to live only for a time to die

love is honesty with another person in mind

and my heart bursts with it

If only I could find the words...

Omertà

Whoever appeals to the law against his fellow man is either a fool or a coward.
Whoever cannot take care of them self without that law is both.
For a wounded man shall say to his assailant,
'If I live, I will kill you. If I die, You are forgiven.'
Such is the rule of honor.

A few words from Ikkyu Sojun

I Hate Incense

A master’s handiwork cannot be measured

But still priests wag their tongues explaining the “Way” and babbling about “Zen.”

This old monk has never cared for false piety

And my nose wrinkles at the dark smell of incense before the Buddha.

A Meal of Fresh Octopus

Lots of arms, just like Kannon the Goddess;

Sacrificed for me, garnished with citron, I revere it so!

The taste of the sea, just divine!

Sorry, Buddha, this is another precept I just cannot keep.

From Wild Ways: Zen Poems of Ikkyu

Ikkyu (1394-1481) Master of Red Thread Zen, one of the most significant figures of Zen history , Abbot of Daitofuji temple in his later years. Ikkyu wrote a poem after his first realisation experience: From the world of passions returning to the world of passions: There is a moments pause. If it rains, let it rain; if the wind blows, let it blow His words are now sacred scripture ,Known as a Heretic and a Saint as well as the point origin of Red Thread Zen, He share's much with the Venerable Yogini (female yogi) Tse Yogal on many levels within Buddhism This approach was closely related to Tantric Buddhism. He is as well a folk hero of Japanese children even yet in our time! Oh I forgot to mention a small fact........... his Father was Emperor of Japan.

I ask what is the Red Thread that ties all the Buddha's, ourselves and life together????

I came across this on Ancient Worlds so credit goes to the origonal poster, but even tho' it is not my practice here to re-publish things I think the words of the Zen priest Ikkyu Sojun are a sound exception to this trend.

http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Post/243250

-Sol

Cross'ed Wires

Hellraiser Halliburton electricity, budding like Barium fission to burn you deep internally
I’ve grown up wicked by no standard but by most blind decrees that’s were I’ve wound up
I’m a scavenger of Loki turnin’ tricks in my web, convincing all listeners something different’s been said
like “corporation” and “prostitution” aren’t synonyms here or “Yahweh” doesn’t translate to “repression and fear”

They teach us shame to lube the guilt we use to puncture our selves
and you best thank ‘em so they “can” help you fuse with somebody else
You know our wilde eye pixel profits just tell us what’s true, “if you don’t keep buying in there’s something wrong with you”

liquid-crystal cackle crackle from every screen, you’re a criminal for askin’ what Big Brother means
no questions asked like “how the fuck can you patent our genes?”
Or how’s it mercy when you turn up the volume of more “foreign” screams?

Whitewashed working class consumes fever dreams as Skulls Illuminate dark destines within oval wings
Three-hundred twenty two manifestations of plutocracy dreams
will tell you why hearts are frozen, dead in Necromonger puppets who glut on pursuit of things

burn the backdrop of our beauty an’ poisen our breath, killing cope-aesthetic consciousness now [we’re] reminders bereft
I’ve got my rings and shallow things like diamonds of blood, seems clear understanding don’t cut glass like it should
and in this plexi-iron cage of irrational suffocation will occur if we don’t open a window somehow

but when I spit what I see somebody always comes back, with this smirk while they lurk in the shadows in back like “if you’re fueled and you’re ragin’ at what you’ve exposed, then why you waitin’ why don’t you take a shot and just fucking explode?”
‘Cuz a bomb may cause a storm or even sink an edifice, but twin towers are just tools used to rape your psychology, and it’s the body not the building that’s a target for me
that’s why I’m a cancer not a bomber, so I’ll ‘silently’ grow
so when I feel ‘em there’ll be no tillin’ from which way came the blow

Catchers Mit, Inside Out

Fate of days keeps slipping, blood washed
Through my hands


I got all I need and nothing that I want
my hopes unspent Litchs that I flaunt
haunted phylacteries
of the
tear white
and gaunt
I'm laughing now cuz' it's hungers seed
and even when I'm stuffed
to burning, hunger's what I need
Pink-0 bastard tears by Yin Yang eyes
habits of fear make even truth lie

Jump up and hope.. that you miss the ground.. on the way back down
glancin' at edges like the answer's behind 'em

gonna bathe in bleach so I can change my skin,
redesigned like the cameleon
turf my toes on doesn't matter cuz the air's on brake again

Pale blue's the brightest hue that there's ever been
I'm necromancer white reflecting all the light
keeps the abyss wrapped and tight
but my colors are bleedin' gray
"gray's a shade not a color"
well then I guess that I'm a shade, I'll give off star shine shadows


....and people ask me why I'm always hungry

A Man - Alanis Morissette

Felt like this too often
~Sol


I am a man as a man I've been told
Bacon is brought to the house in this mold
Born of your bellies I yearn for the cord
Years I have groveled repentance ignored

And I have been blamed
And I have repented
I'm working my way toward our union mended

I am man who has grown from a son
Been crucified by enraged women
I am son who was raised by such men
I'm often reminded of the fools I'm among

And I have been shamed
And I have relented
I'm working my way toward our union mended
And I have been shamed
And I have repented
I'm working my way toward our union mended

we don't fare well with endless reprimands
we don't do well with a life served as a sentence
this won't work well if you're hell bent on your offence
I am a man who understands your resistance

I am a man who still does what he can
to dispel our archaic reputation
I am a man who has heard all he can
cuz I don't fare well with endless punishment

Cuz I have been blamed and I have repented
I'm working my way toward our union mended
And we have been blamed and we have repented
I'm working my way toward our union mended

"patriot" act

I believe that in this upcoming election as well as in current political action there is a vital issue which is being generally under addressed. That is the vitality of huge reductions to and revisions in powers to overturn privacy rights that were granted in the wake of the so called "patriot" act.
Our justice system was created to uphold Innocent until proven guilty. Now the higher levels of the Justice Dept. and the FBI (as well as other agencies) are violating the rights of citizens without notice or accountability, without even the suspicion of their own personal guilt. With no more than the assumption of the possibility that citizens might have knowingly or unknowingly associated with someone who has or plans to commit a crime. These actions are excesses and the excessive powers granted by the "patriot" act are to blame. "We do not trust government always to be run by angels, especially not this administration," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler D-N.Y. and he is very correct. The use of terror as a tactic is designed to destroy a way of living, and if we allow the legislative powers that provoke, bolster, and sustain this continued violation of our civic sovereign rights then the true weapons employed on September 11th will have been a success.


Spread the word,
~Sol

Opals Of Night

I waken dreaming of roses in a cool blue gray world which sooths and calms, a land of echoes where life is a memory and vitality the story all around me. Soft stone and air so cool it glows. Lope-padding through water carved stone galleries whose grand resonance at my foot falls reverberates solely within me rippling in the same liquid satin fashion as a black hole.
Somewhere within me I know something awakes and there are dreams of hopes to come that cool my pain and ease my smile. Even as to many they would taste anathema.
Home, where I wander wither I will within and beyond worlds in that space in between where all lights dim, all shadows flair and all incarnations of creation collide shedding soft liquid sparks like the exhalation sigh of lips from Rose petals.

Riddle Me This

what do you call someone who comes into your house with a gun and separates you from your family? What would you do if a stranger entered your life with no respect or honesty and uses the threat of force to take your siblings, your baby sister away from you even though they've never been done any harm by anyone of your blood.
What would you do? what would you call this type of person?
who do you think this is?
I'm asking honestly, I want a response from anyone who reads this, message me or send a comment whatever I don't care, I simply what to hear from everyone what type of a person it is who would do this sort of thing to someone they don't even know.

Gray

For a hint look at the picture....

Raven Song

Death is before me today:
like the recovery of a sick man,
like going forth into a garden after sickness.


Death is before me today:
like the odor of myrrh,
like sitting under a sail in a good wind.


Death is before me today:
like the course of a stream
like the return of a man from the war-galley to his house.


Death is before me today:
like the home that a man longs to see,
after years spent as a captive.



~That forgotten poet~

Crime Think

CrimethInc. Ex-Workers' Collective

Just go there, try reading any of their free information or order a few stickers to use. It's one of the more worthwhile things out there in the world right now.

~Sol

"Expectations Essay" (Just because....)

alright so this is one of those silly essays from collage that often don't do much in the way of anything... however I was unusually forthcoming on this one so I figured why not I'll just post it here and it'll be somewhat interesting for what it's worth *grins*

peace all

Sol


Expectations Essay

My expectations for time spent at the University are to develop my abilities in studying and research. Also to expand my knowledge base on the whole and to develop more detailed and specific knowledge and skills in my chosen areas of study. Those areas are Sociology, Psychology, Philosophy, Political Science, and Software Technology. The goal of these areas being combined in my study is to create new methods of learning and study so that everyone will be more able to learn than they are currently equipped to do by the time they finish most High School and/or Collage curricular systems. Further I seek to design an informational systems analysis system to map the broad trends of human cultural, political, and economic behavior such that (much like is currently done with the weather) the probabilities of given events based on current (or theoretical) policies could be determined with greater accuracy.
Additionally I wish to program advances in cryptography and personal privacy suites that is based on a “smart” design so as to enhance the integrity of personally privacy in the face of all current and continuing violations by both corporate and governmental institutions who have in each case blithely disregarded the fundamentals of the constitution for the sake of convince in perpetuating their personal agendas. I hope to make sufficient money doing this research and development work such that I am able to acquire land of my own and build an ecologically sound and sustainable living environment for myself and what could in brief be termed my family. To these ends I seek to develop my own ability to think clearly, analytically, and (most importantly) creatively. To enhance my own knowledge base and to expand my network of like minded persons so that I have a larger peer group within which to frame questions as to my current methods and to co-operate with on the development and implementation of new means to remove the current repugnant social trends towards materialism and homogeny. And to afford myself the opportunity to associate with a larger number of persons who possess the intellectual insight and personal integrity to make their choices based on their own sight and paradigm without distortion from the current popularity of given fashions be those guised in political, economic, medical, chemical, social, or theological garb. As a more immediate step I am taking courses with the intent to enter grad school and possibly to transfer to the University of Calgary in Canada due to their internationally pre-eminent computer development and research department and also due to their focus on interdisciplinary studies which are integral to the types of learning I currently seek. The degrees that I seek eventually are a PhD is Psychology with specializations in Forensics and Behavioral Finance. Both of these are areas that deal with the motives for given actions and developing profiles of behavior both as it pertains to group trends and to individual persons so as to predict probable future actions. And a degree in computer programing and development. This is so that I am able to provide the software support and computer applications side of my new learning and behavioral analysis systems. To summarize my focus in my time as an undergraduate are to learn how people learn and what are effective ways to study and also to learn how people operate in groups and individually as well as the programming skills to describe this knowledge in a digital paradigm.

Roses

"You darling are a true gentleman, you know how to treat a lady, so it seems. People say diamonds are the way to a woman's heart but that is entirely incorrect.
BUt yet I am still to wonder why a rose represents love if a rose dies."


And my response:


all things die, or so they say, but I rose will last for years and years. If you take a rose even cut and open the end to place it in water, floating there in the solution that was likely life for us all sometime way back. The Rose will grow small roots allowing you to, if you so wish, move it into soil and keep it watered and sheltered. After that you may move it yet again to the out of doors where it will flourish and grow into a bush of it's own producing many roses and even tho' the buds may wax and wain there are always more to come from the bush that is the core of the rose and there are always seeds for another day from each bud that's danced it's waltz and come to rest.
To me when the rose is looked at as a whole, to show life rather than as a token only. It is then as you see it's roots and it's seeds, it's leaves and thorns all along with the 'jewel' of it's buds and blooms, that is when our roses truly become a symbol of love. For they remind us that love will change but if we care for it love will also grow and endure even if during it's time it will wax and wain through many cycles just as does the rose with it's blooms throughout it's rather long life.

There is another way to look at this just as apt, even if beauty fades, even if love or ourselves may die there is still joy to be found. The petals of a rose inspire something in the heart, the beauty strikes a chord and for a time the heart is lifted by these wings of joy. Perhaps it is sad when these wings have flown themselves till exhausted and must have new inspiration to fly again, yet even so once our hearts were exulted to the sky. The exultation does not have to be immortal to be real, or to be savored. And there is then the chance to seek it anew.

Together these show the rose, as love, to be both fleeting and eternal, for having seen a rose is not that image left on your minds eye ever after? Have you ever forgotten roses where since you learned of them?
The rose is at once both transient as it's smallest petal and lasting as it's largest root. So too is love, we must simply remember that love, like the rose, is alive and needs care or like the rose it will wither and die if starved of sustenance.

It's how I strive to treat both romance and friendship, for in the end they are not so truly different than one breed of rose is to another.

Regards,
Sol

A glass raised to Max and Orsen, if only we'd heeded you.

Sorry about the spelling all, but I hope you enjoy the content

~Sol~


Are we living in an Iron Cage?



Long before I heard of Weber and his theories I grew up with this frightful visage looming over the prospect of coming history. What I did not understand was that my isnulated alternitive life had shelided me from what had already taken place within much of the world and that which was still marching steadily forward.
From McDonleds in Costa Rica to T.G.I. Friday's in Prauge the homonginzation of world culture continues. And it's stripping us of our basic humanty. Humans learn and grow primarly when they encounter something new, and our multinational corprate bearucries have been systimaticly rememoving all need for truely new experiences whever they find it. Consider, if you are able to go to the same restraunt and order the same thing in the same language on both sides of the ocaen and three continents without 'breaking a sweat' what kind of new oppertunites for learning does that provide? But it doesn't stop there, what happens to the 'consumer' (even the term it's self is an unfortunte capital/corprate margenlization) in the form of monochromatic experience and mediocir (at best) products. That is secondary to the effects on the working force. Those people who make whatever deep-fat-fried proten slab or plastic widget. They are treated increasingly as less valuable and more universally replaceable than even their product. Imagen for a moment that not only can anyone walking down the street in your country take your job but most people walking down the streets of some other contintent could do so as well. How deeply does it strip your cultural identiy when one of your primary rolls negates your sense of personal value, or indeed of the concept of you being a unique person. The degradation further continues as unions are destroyed or undercut in the multinational globelization within which we live and as oversight continues to mount. And there's the real rub, these beaurcratic National governing bodies, NGOs, and IGOs all have analysts who can (and do) tell them the truth... that people are not going to find this unnatural method of living conducive to happyness and thus are likely to object. Hence you see levels of military preeption abrod by our current Pax Amarican regime but much more subtily you see the national and internation oversight growing in areas such as civil liberties and econmics. Welfair is down, medical benifits are down, social security is failing, and fewer jobs offer any retirement and of those that do fewer offer one which is investment compensated for inflation to ensure a "living wage" after you leave the work force. We can (ironicly) turn to China for an example extream example of how this system is playing out. With a few elites benifiting deeply from the work of the masses and the specilists in key fields being romanced into colaberation by privlages and sweetheart deals. It is enough to make Marx and Engles spin in their graves. And then there's the oversight, the camras at every intersection in the U.K. and most cities with in the U.S.A. are just a couple of examples. The insertion of GPS into almost every cutting edge portable device (including cars in the case of OnStar) the surrender of Personal phone records for investigation without the justifications of charges or warrents. They also unwarrented (both in legal documents and in social justice) wire taps conducted by the present U.S. admisinstration. The FBI's "raptor" program which allows them to steal any prsonal e-mail (or other digital media transmitted via the world wide web) without warrent or comment. These are but examples of how the Panopticon is alive and well, as well as being a stark validation to the visions of people like George Orwell (1984) and Lois Lowry (The Giver) or perahps the more contemperary cenmia compostion Equlibreum (written and directed by Kurt Wimmer). To return to the point we must ask the qustion "why?", why is it that these massive buarcies invest so much in overwhelmingly massive oversight and intervention? Because they understand that from the frycook to the journist, from the cubicle to the campus, people would quickly manifest divergent (or as the burrcrats like to call them "devient") behvior patters if they were not in a consistant (perhaps even constant) state of apprenhenction over weather they are being watched and what reprisals this might bring. And make no mistake, when we live in a time where econmoic buracratic tycoons [George W. Bush, Dick Chaney for but two more prominten American examples] direct goverment buracrocy to arrest and detain forgen citizens for the precived intention of commiting a "crime" (not act for any sort which they admit, but intention) of comitting a crime (not a crime that is currently on any of our criminal or civil books, but excutivly decreed as a crime [See the C-Span Q&A regarding the Military tribunal legislation broadcast on 9/7/06]) and where the CIA holds people in undisclosed location engaging in unspecified "coersion" for unspecified lenghts of time [stie same C-Span broadcast as above]. A world in which Passports are "bugged" with tracking devices and National ID cards are on the horizon. A world where minute microchips are set in clothing, credit cards, and IDs for the sake of collecting market data without bother to ask any of the people for their oppinnions. In this world that fear of oversight and buracratic retaliation is a well founded one. In such a world George Orwell would say "caution becomes habbit and habbit becomes reflex and reflex becomes a way of life" and our current Phychologists and Nurobiologists would agree. In such a world as this I would say not only has Webers view of an Iron Cage come to pass, but the Bars are electrified.

Chaos Dreams

from all things was chaos born before all things were made, and too all things is chaos owed for by all things is Chaos payed

What I've been up too, why I don't write so much anymore...

New armor Aprox $600; Nehantoe Apprentice Katana FREE it's a birthday present, Master work Katana $2000; Reading both translations of the Bushido, free here too, I have them both already; Saving for collage Tuition and fees/books $2500 per smester +plus books and fees, Drivers Ed Class $150, I have three friends Aaron, Tess, and Meg who are here for a littlewhile this summer, and most of them are of the "when I shall see thee next I know not". The price for the Armor is the price of flying out to have it fitted so that's another bit of a slice. Pratice time when I can get it too prepare for War, I expect to fight every battle this year at Pennsic. And I demand of myself a dedication to surviving all of my comrades. I won't be the last to fall, if I allow myself to fall at all. I play deeply with chaos magic these days, and hardly do words fit it. The unity of Zen the fusion of Wisdom and intillect, of inisght and inquest. Both burn strong. I am getting a new Laptop to last me through all of school, it will be about $4000 and some change. But I won't have to pass it off or press it up to new standards while I'm in school so that's a grave help to me. I am also reading Tom Robbins Novels as well as Saul Williems (soon). And I have started a regime of the 5 Tibitens and of yoga. My Jobs are mostly only two (the thirds is a "it could happen" thing were I pick up hours sometimes) Working for my father digging and re-envinting life in the back yard, and two calling on the phones to make survey calls.
I work to develop and RPG amoung my friends and I, and to have it published. Sometimes I put in a scrap or two more for my colleced work of poems. And I have a novel to complete, I am still working on the races desipostion and development for/within it. I'm doing that with my brother. I grow more of fire by the day at what I see around me, this program for a "fedreal licence" with a tracker chip in it is one such thing. I will not live in world that Orewell saw, burn them I won't. I've gotten two new Shini and am going to start praticing once more in full. I have three pratice knives, still without edge or point, and use those as well. I owe my brother $175 from last Pennsic, and I still owe my Uncle $3000 tho he would say it is less :P
that's the long and the sort of it, I've done the ACT and plan to be tested for Dyslexia as well as other behavioral conditions that may grant me an edge in school environments.
And now here, the Hour grows late and I must go.

All of the best to thee,
Sol