Jeff Buehler Weblog

I am spending about half of the week as a full time parent of my now 5 year old daughter Asha, which (although challenging) has been wonderful. This is a sweeping change from spending time with her everyday but only, for the most part, breakfast, lunch and dinner and occasionally other periods when I wasn’t working. At any rate, among thousands of interesting tidbits of knowledge I have been lucky enough to have gleaned from my time with a little homo sapien of this age, one recent tidbit has really stood out that I thought might be of interest to some.

Apparently there are two things my daughter finds interesting right now, and everything else is something like ghostly images in the fog. The first is an interesting but ultimately annoying product consisting of small fuzzy animals with codes that allow you to play an avatar version of them via a webpage. In this case the toy is “Webkinz”, although Beannie Babies are a similar but comparatively spectral runner up. The second thing of interest is her very, very good friend Dahlia whom, I have been informed, she intends to marry. Marriage and my feelings on that subject aside, I am asked no less than five and no more than fifty times a day if she and Dahlia might have a playdate.

In one of those moments when Asha was bending my ear on the subject of Dahlia and a playdate exactly one day after the last playdate AND sleepover they had together, one of Dahlias parents called and said that Dahlia kept asking about Asha and could they get together (again) etc. Yes! I said in my mind - I didn’t have to call and annoy Dahlias parents, whom I like very much, and bug them. More importantly, they were going through the same thing.

Being the responsible parent I occasionally strive to be, I took it upon myself to try and broaden Ashas interests into other domains that I was certain would be of great interest to her, such as painting and drawing. We set about our task, getting paper and pens from the craft cabinet, and I was promptly informed that Asha wanted me to draw one of her cuddly Webkinz creatures for her to color. After doing so, I was informed that no, that wasn’t right, she wanted it to look like the online avatar version of the creature rather than the real world one. Fine; I drew that. After a short amount of coloring and a lot of discussion about Kinzcash, the new virtual swimming pool she wanted for Becka (her Webkinz Unicorn), and so on, I decided that my efforts were at best partially successful. Somewhere in the back of my brain, probably the reptilian portion, a little squirt of synapse juice informed me that it was possible I had simply managed to reinforce the Webkinz fetish. But I’m not so easily daunted when it comes to my daughters welfare, and so I moved on to one of my least favorite but most often addressed topics - nutrition. I suggested that, hey, why don’t we have a snack - how do some carrots sound?

“Dahlias rabbit likes carrots a lot,” I was informed. Not yes or no to the carrots themselves - that would be too easy. No, instead I have been schooled in several very important facts, neither of which has anything really to do with eating or nutrition or carrots. I now have been reminded that Dahlia has a Webkinz rabbit. Dahlia. Webkinz. See how easy that is? I looked down at my five year old with what I hoped was not an expression of defeat and realized that those little innocent eyes looking back at me knew exactly what they wanted, and what they were doing. I could say anything - “Are you hungry, cuteness?” would be met with “I made Becka (Webzinz Unicorn) a squishy-goo pie on my barbecue (virtual barbecue in Webkinz world) today.” “Let’s go to the Discovery Museum,” is countered by “Can we call Dahlia so she can go too? I want to bring Becka and Winda…” and so on. My daughter is five and her single minded focus has completely outstripped any ammunition I might be able to muster to defuse it. Anything I say can only at best reinforce what she already wants to think about.

It didn’t take long for a friend to call and ask, I don’t know, something about how I was doing or what I was up to whereupon I replied “Asha is so cute - she is doing great.” When they asked what I was working on, I think I said something like “Asha and I went to the Marin County Fair the other day. It was pretty hot there.” So there it is. Human behavior in a nutshell.

Wow, I wish I were able to be there for each and every “oh shit” expression that comes over you Bush administration supporters when you realize exactly how badly you have been economically raped, along with the rest of we Americans.  When you finally wake up  and see that a national debt such as ours is simply unmanageable, and that the money is coming right out of your pocket.  I wish I could be there.

Unfortunately  I’m getting raped too, the only difference being I (as well as plenty of other people) saw it coming from way off.  When you watch Bush and his cronies in oil and business walk off with money literally stuffed into their pockets while the middle class disappears and Americans go bankrupt, maybe you will finally recognize that the biggest scam in history has taken place and it worked!  The American people were conned out of our capital by a bunch of scumbags who used the oldest trick in the book - fear and xenophobia - to make us look the other way while they did exactly as they pleased.

Amazing.  Really - I guess we as a nation deserve it, huh?  I mean, come on, how could you not see it coming?  The dollar is reduced to being practically worthless by all of the money being printed, the privately shareholder-owned for profit “Federal Reserve Bank” continues to control debt (and therefore us) and the economy is generally trashed.  Meanwhile there are still a few people out there (real estate agents, Republican economists, the banking system) that seem to insist everything is OK - simply astounding.

So I just had what might be thought of as a “movie moment”. You know, one of those moments that would be funny in a movie but that you wouldn’t ever really want to tell anyone about? So of course I decided to write it here, because just telling my wife and daughter would somehow not be as satisfying.

So I was in my office, which has an attached bathroom and kitchen, and taking a shower. After getting out of the shower I noticed that there was no towel. This has happened before, and generally I call Grier at the house after dripping across the floor to get to the phone and beg her to bring me a towel, but this time I spied a roll of paper towels sitting on the drawing board where I have been painting, and thought “hmmm. I wonder how many paper towels it will take to dry off one human body?” As it turns out, it takes quite a few, about 20 of the square pieces. I wouldn’t suggest it - it is very wasteful. Normal bath towels, in addition to having lots of absorbent surface area, also have the advantage of being large enough to hold both ends and dry of hard to reach area in the upper mid back.

I use a couple of terms in this article that can have confusing semantics, so I want to begin by clearly defining the way I use them here. When I say “conservative”, I mean specifically this Merriam-Webster definition: “3 a : tending or disposed to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions : TRADITIONAL b : marked by moderation or caution c : marked by or relating to traditional norms of taste, elegance, style, or manners “, and to specifically define my use of “liberal”: “5 : BROAD-MINDED; especially : not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or traditional forms”. Lastly, to define my use of the word “ideas” here, I mean: “A thought, image, notion or concept formed by the mind” and “An opinion or belief.” I stretch the definition of “idea” bit to apply it to any kind of information, such as music, literature, video, conversation, and so on - anything that involves the brain only and not the body or any type of action. Now on to the point.

I was talking with another parent the other day about censorship of information. I find this topic to be incredibly interesting, but also a bit touchy for many of us (that may be part of the reason I find it interesting!). As individuals we hold beliefs and ideas that may or may not be comfortable or agreeable to everyone around us. Issues surrounding religion, or the lack of it, are perfect examples. It seems to me that most of us fall somewhere between the extremes of radically conservative or radically liberal regarding unfettered exposure to ideas. For example, in California many of us probably hover somewhere around mild discomfort with the strong violence in some rap/hip-hop dirges replete with shootings and so on, but not the kind of Midwestern discomfort that might have us pass laws to ban it completely on moral or religious grounds[1]. As for myself I have always held that information is always safe, no matter how horrible or offensive it may be to me personally (or to most of us!), so I am likely quite far on the “liberal” end of the extreme relative to most people. The only thing I would truly like to censor is censorship. At any rate, our conversation had begun on the general topic as applies to adults - what is “appropriate” or “inappropriate” in terms of access to information. Naturally, being the parents we are, the discussion quickly moved on to what is acceptable to allow young minds to be exposed to, in our case the minds of our 4 year old daughters.

What are acceptable ideas for a 4 year old, and who should establish the boundaries? Should the culture intervene by passing laws that prevent (censor) certain types of information, or should the responsibility rest entirely with the family? Have we struck the right balance in the United States? I don’t really have concise or clear answers to these relatively large questions, but I do have a few thoughts that I decided to scrawl down on this beautiful sunny and windy fall day - I imagine that few parents could escape without some significant time being spent considering these issues.

I can’t really say specifically what constitutes an “acceptable” range of ideas for a 4 year old. I find that for the most part I make it up as I go along, and in almost every case the decision is obvious and simple. Texas Chainsaw Massacre? No (even though I myself love horror movies). Toy Story? Yes. Care Bears? I wish I could say no, but it hasn’t worked so far, so I find myself suffering through painful cuteness and unrealistic dispute management. Will my daughter grow up thinking that everyone will just decide to work together in the end, regardless of how they feel, and with a big cheesy smile on their face? Time will tell, but that certainly hasn’t been my experience! It seems to me if I can’t come up with a clear definition of what is and what is not acceptable information for my daughter, then a bunch of people who know nothing about her are not in a position to. Why should some lobbyist or senator be allowed to define “proper” ideology via the law. On the other hand, if my neighbor were training their 4 year old to ravenously attack like a starved pit bull anything that came on their property through the use of ultra-violent video and music I might want the culture to intervene at some point. So this is a bit more complicated than it appears at first glance. As with almost everything, it cuts both ways.

I would like to take a look at some of the actual cultural interventions that exist now. In order to do so, though, I must apologize while I step out of context slightly and look at it from a general “all-ages” standpoint, not simply a 4 year old standpoint, as these are some of the first thoughts to come to mind for me. After all, our 4 year olds will eventually be 5, then 10, and if we are all quite lucky big happy adults. I will endeavor to bring it back around to child specific analysis shortly.

One example of cultural intervention that occurs to me is advertising. If culture was not allowed to intervene in the case of advertising, then Michael Jordan (or Barry Bonds, Brad Pitt, etc.) could say just about anything and call it reality. Come to think of it, they do say just about anything and call it reality, and the culture doesn’t intervene, at least not much. Hmmm - well, let’s try another example: if we were to allow the culture to intervene in the case of drug use and alcohol consumption, then it might seem hypocritical or odd to allow pharma-corps to get people hooked on medications they can’t afford, or to allow people to shoot other people at an age where they aren’t allowed to have a glass of wine. Oh, wait, the culture does intervene in the case of drug and alcohol use, but not significantly in the case of corporations that peddle them, and 18 year olds are legally allowed to cut other human beings in half (and en masse) with large caliber helicopter mounted machine guns, but not to have a beer. Well, that does seem odd, and somewhat problematic, at least to me. I for one would certainly like to enjoy a celebratory beer after taking care of a bunch of infidels! Actually, I would want several to cry into after such an event, but the previous sentence seemed funnier at the time. I wonder if these same incongruities exist regarding cultural laws that pertain to our children?

Certainly we have numerous laws in the United States governing what children may and may not be exposed to. For example, the movie rating system - although parents can choose to take children to a movie that has an R rating, they could not legally take a child to a movie with a rating of NC-17. That seems OK. How about the Childrens Internet Protection Act (CIPA). It is a legal requirement for public schools and libraries to install internet filters that prevent the viewing of “inappropriate” information. Initially that seems reasonable – I certainly don’t want my 4 year old daughter stumbling onto a porn site and asking me what’s going on in this or that picture – I prefer to save that until she’s at least 5[2]. Upon analysis the question of what constitutes “inappropriate” certainly should be addressed. Who decides? Is it the IT person who sets up the filter, or a lengthy document following an overpriced study that carefully outlines the definition of “inappropriate”. Who polices the filter to make certain that sanctioned items are not blocked, and that unacceptable ones are? Is it once again the IT person who happens to have a thing for Japanese Schoolgirls who dress up like boys and makes certain the computers do have access to sites containing that material for he or she to peruse[3]? I think the potential problems are obvious.

Children must legally be educated between the ages of 5 and 16, although there is some flexibility in how the education occurs, such as home schooling. These seem pretty reasonable, although it is worth questioning the definition of education as it is a legal requirement. One clear example comes to mind: The debate surrounding the teaching of evolution in public schools. Clearly to those of us who believe in evolution (despite its characteristic problems in explaining everything) the debate is ridiculous, almost exactly as ridiculous as it is to those of us who believe in intelligent design or diving creation (despite their characteristic problems in explaining everything). Personally I prefer to keep theism completely out of my daughter’s life, as well as blind belief in just about anything including “scientific objectivity” which repeatedly has been shown to bend to the will of those performing the “quantifiable” research due to outside pressures such as expectation, funding (money), and so on. However, who am I to keep religious debate out of the schools? If I want my daughter, or anyone else, to keep an open mind and continue to question their own beliefs, then more information is necessary, not less. How can someone who knows nothing about the scientific method, or who has already made up their mind about the existence of a deity or deities, possibly be in a position to question these ideas? We need ALL of the information we can get in the schools, as far as I am concerned, not just what the majority of us deem comfortable or acceptable. If ideas have to pass committee to be allowed, that merely ensures bland and insipid information for our children, and if we feed them a diet of mediocrity, then how can we expect anything other than mediocrity from them? I’m not personally into Christianity[4], but I have read the bible – how could I have an opinion otherwise? More importantly, just because it doesn’t resonate with me as true in my life, how can I justly dictate what is or isn’t “reality” for someone else, or their children – like I know what’s going on?!

Of course we are discussing 4 year olds, and the debate over evolution or creationism only pertains distantly. I should mention that my daughter was an unusually early reader, and so at 4 she has been reading for well over a year now, and she reads voraciously. This means that I am daily in a position of assessing content for her, and it is not at all uncommon for me to come across books that are religious in nature, or books that are full of “soft” science with dubious sources[5] and so on. I solve this by letting her read them, and talking with her about what she has read whenever possible. Who is Jesus? Well, let’s talk about that when you are older. What is sex? Well, let’s talk about that when you are older. How far is the sun from the moon? Well, let’s get out a tape measure. You know - that sort of thing[6]. Probably my daughter won’t even go to a public school, and that is primarily because I don’t believe in the limited (censored, washed out, filtered) curriculum provided there at any grade level, but it doesn’t have to be that way. It certainly was for me – my strongest memories from school are about trying to remove myself from tedious group activities, and when that failed being told to put my book away. That’s far from my concept of an ideal educational arrangement. For those of us less inclined towards reading, public school was an exercise in getting past the tests, as opposed to actually learning anything. Clearly something is wrong with that, and I believe it has a lot to do with our willingness to adopt rigidly filtered curriculums that serve better to teach our children how NOT to think and question ideas for themselves than to educate them.

I have only skirted briefly around the issues and ideas here, but I am getting tired of typing. I hope your day is full of new ideas!

OK - here is the story I wrote as a sweet little Christmas Tale for all of my loved ones. I hope you like it.

The Man Who Offed Santa Claus

Jeremy knew there was something sinister about Santa Claus. He had been researching the subject of “Old Saint Nick” for years, and it simply didn’t add up. How did Santa get to so many houses in one evening? And how did such a fat man fit down all of those chimneys, or get into the houses that didn’t have any? What about all of the apartments, floors and floors of them, all over the world, and what about a population that had doubled in 31 years? How did Santa cope with an increase like that?

Jeremy knew Santa was not fiction, because he had seen Santa Claus in all of his … glory … some 29 years earlier. Nothing like the man with the bell dressed up as Santa collecting for Salvation Army, or the one bobbing toddlers with partial bladder control on his lap in the mall. No, this Santa had to be the real thing.

Of course Jeremy had considered the idea that Santa Claus used the “Magic of Christmas” to perform all of these feats. After years of research, he had found no evidence anywhere to support the idea that magic really existed. He didn’t buy the magical miracle argument for a minute.

No, Santa was an alien. Not out of state, or out of country, but off-planet – an extraterrestrial And Jeremy was pretty certain that this alien Santa wasn’t leaving gifts behind, but rather some sort of twisted nutcracker device for spying on the inhabitants of all of those homes he…it…visited. He had found one last year, but it wasn’t easy – they were completely invisible to the human eye, and small. Jeremy had found it while wearing night goggles he had ordered online three years before. Santa is also invisible, most of the time, but not to thermal imaging, as it turns out – Santa is slightly warmer than a rock.

Jeremy wasn’t certain why Santa was leaving behind these little nutcrackers and so here he was at the North Pole to find out. He guessed that Santa was hiding his lair the same way he hid himself and his nutcrackers, and he was right. Once he saw the structure it was a simple matter to get in. It was alien in design, except for cute little candy cane touches that Santa must have found amusing. All of the entry-ways had doors that responded to a smiley, elf-faced touch pad. There was no security at all that Jeremy could see, and so he began creeping around looking for Santa with a pistol in his hand. Following the strange attempts at faux-gingerbread alien stone design it wasn’t long before Jeremy found his way to Old Saint Nick himself, who looked up with what might have been surprise from his slightly wobbly-jelly looking seat. When Jeremy shot him, he didn’t bother to stop pulling the trigger until all 16 rounds from the clip were buried into the fleshy thing that was, but was no longer, Santa Claus.

Jeremy looked down at the dying thing, and couldn’t help but notice the sad but almost relieved look in its face. Its little Santa hat, more of a conical plant-thing than a hat, really, had rolled off its head, and Jeremy could plainly see through his night vision goggles Santa’s fungal beard and hair growth. Jeremy was pondering whether or not it was really something other than hair when he was grabbed gently, but uncompromisingly, from behind, and spun about.

In front of Jeremy was a menagerie not really describable in any human language. Holding him was a thing all covered in something… unknown, and when it slowly lifted the goggles off his face with huge paw like appendages he saw that it was off white and like fur, but more like a moldy growth. It had something like big floppy ears. Jeremy had the very sick feeling that this might be the Easter Bunny. Behind it were more figures, but thankfully he fainted before he could really get a look.

Jeremy woke up in his own bed. He got up after a while, and he found a note beneath a magnet of Wile E. Coyote on his fridge. It said (in a decidedly shaky and alien hand): “To the Claus killer, no more old Christmas spirit. No one now to give you all the nutcrackers. No more Santa Claus, so sad for you.”

Like a slap in the face, Jeremy knew then that Santa Claus hadn’t been an alien at all. He had been an ancient spirit, a guardian of an idea, the idea of peace, love and giving. He could clearly feel their absence, like a memory of something wonderful that you can never have again. When Jeremy glanced at the countertop next to him, all he saw there was a small lump of coal.

Today God spoke to me and told me that he/she did not exist. Which made sense to me.

I’m sick and tired of corporate money-centric thinking. How about you?

My daughters new room in our new pad is pink - a color that has begun to spread around our home like some strange candy flavored virus. First it appeared in innocous places, pajamas and socks, crayons, toenails. Now it taken over an entire room of our new house, a reminder of all that is vapid and contrived, a harbringer of breast augmentation and the right smile for the right occasion. A whole room to enshrine the ultimate color of deception, pink which appears as something but represents nothing.

Even stranger, my daughters room is the same one I had from the ages of 14 to 17, high school years. This is the room I first had sex in, and now it is two tones of the most intense pink colors to please my almost three year old daughter. This room is in the houise my mom died in, and while I wouldn’t necessarily paint it black, pink is for me somehow worse, like Warhols image of the electric chair (all in pinks), some strange contrast of something against nothing.

My daughter loves her new room, and that is good enough for me.

My new studio/office is not pink. It has a new tiled floor that I really like. It looks and feels like a data center, which it is, with a pinch of old english library because of the 9 foot bookshelves lining the side of the studio opposite the servers. Arriving here has been a bit like severing a foot to gain deeper wisdom. Incredibly painful, and lots of time to wonder what you have done while you hop around, but ultimately things seem a bit clearer.

I guess thats all I have to say about that.

November 19th at 8:30 in the morning. Grier and I were with her, and it was (and is) very sad.

I miss her.

After six years of going through breast cancer with her, I thought I might feel at least some relief at a conclusion, but instead I found myself deliriously happy for every minute of the last six years I was able to spend with my mom.

Goodbye mom.

Presently I’m in the unenviable position to be thinking about euthanasia, due to the progressively severe cancer my mother is suffering from. Just to help round out my perspective a bit (always a bad idea!) I did a little searching on the web for other perspectives and insights about this and suicide in general. I was quickly impressed by the weak and culturally condoned positions people tend to take on this subject - long winded diatribes on Gods law, or lengthy discussions about the weighing of moral imperative of the value of life vs. suicide. For example, one person talks about “…you probably (as a society) want to put some constraints in place to try and minimize unnecessary loss of life.” referring to avoiding “unnecessary and preventable” suicide from taking place.

Excuse me here, but, um, aren’t we talking about a persons own life, death and body? Are we so afraid of death still, after all of these years, that we feel justified in stripping individual rights to make their own decision about their own life and death? Or is it that perhaps some of us simply can’t stand the idea of individuals being self-empowered because that would mean chaos and anarchy, power over God and Country? We should be ashamed of ourselves as a society for taking this empowerment away from others unless they are clearly deranged.

Don’t get me wrong here. I understand, and I have considered, that a teen in extreme anguish over something that ultimately might be relatively insignificant could choose suicide, and this is truly awful, and should not be condoned in any sense. However, there are a couple of important points here: in this case, we are talking about a teen - a person who in this country cannot even choose to buy alcohol. They so not completely fall within my definition of an adult making an important decision - they are still young, and it is arguable that some of their rights, including that of choosing the time and place of their own death, should be reserved until they are at least 18. Also, and clearly, anyone with impaired mental faculty should be prevented from harming themselves.

Aside from this, I strongly feel that taking a position that tells people within a society that they do not have control over the time and place of their own death sends the wrong message, and that it is patently ridiculous for anyone who thinks about it. The best it accomplishes is to generate a sense of abstract and inappropriate guilt, and to send the message to individuals that they actually have no choice over something as significant as their own death, and that death is WRONG and something to be feared. If a person were to believe that they didn’t even have control over something as obviously within their control as their own life and death, then how could they possibly feel empowered over any other aspect of their life? Are we to have everyone believe that death is awful, terrible, and to be loathed whatever the cost to their own empowerment and life? I would think that this message would create MORE suicides, not less.

I would never think to tell someone that they HAD to kill themselves because their pain was so great that it would be “illegal” for them not to commit suicide. The reverse, what we have as a society now, is no less ridiculous. Why do so many people out there still think that there is an absolute truth that they have pinned down and that others are so foolish as not to understand or see? How dare somebody assume to tell a person how to deal with their own life and death unsolicited? Shame on you!

I love October. I love fall, and I love Halloween (borrowed from Samhain, as so many sweet things have been from pre-Christian Western European culture). I love the change in weather, and the time when things start to get just a little spooky, the exchange of something at once shiny, warm and vapid for something dark, chilly and rich.

Today we are going to find ourselves some pumpkins, which is one of my favorite things to do. This is the one time of year I will allow myself to be in the proximity of Sunflowers, one of natures creepiest flowers (at least if you are me). Something about their bulbous bobbing heads looking down at me always brings back some alien plant encounter vision, Invasion of the Body Snatchers or Spock being sprayed by the flower on (planet name forgotten) and made to experience emotion (not a good thing without some training!). I can’t wait to go find some pumpkins.

No october images or creations have dragged themselves from my mind or spirit yet this year. I am still struggling with responsibilites that in some cases I did not specifically select, but that I will not turn away, that make it very difficult for me to spend time on things for myself such as the creative process. For example, my Mom suffering breast cancer (still, but things have gotten much, much worse), our house (choosing A thing implies that you know what you are getting yourself into - I put myself on the house path many years ago, but I really didn’t know that I was buying years of slavery to a system that I’m not really fond of, that being construction and maintenance), my daughter (I chose this, but I don’t think I chose the whining, constant attention part! OK, maybe I did… shes so great it doesn’t matter anyway), my business (finally making some money, but I am on constant call to prevent computers from going down and make certain that email keeps flowing), my wife and my friends(this is about relationships, and relationships require some time but give back everything you put out!). Hopefully I can find some energy and time soon to do something of merit, but I’m not going to hold my breath (any more than I already have!)

As a point of reference (like you care), here I am this morning, feeling just a tad crusty.

OK - what is it? What is it with this group-think mentality that seems to lead to such unfortunate things as:

1. Stupid little biker outfits and gangs of supposeadly health concious idiots gabbing side by side like old fish wives? Don’t get me wrong, bikes are great, I absolutely love them, but please go get a loaf of bread and take off the tights! Use your bike for transportation for a change…

2. Lawyers on Harleys? Or, for that matter, anywone on Harleys? Frankly, overly loud motorcycles were barely cool in the sixties when it was actually somewhat rebellious to ride them… I don’t get why every ass-bag and his sister wants to get on a big, fat, overpriced American motorcycle and wake up my daughter every time their engine farts by. Get a Ducati, or a Honda, or just about anything else that at least has the decency to shut the fuck up!

3. Hummers? What? I still see these ridiculous cars driving around Marin… What the hell is that about? I see a Hummer driving around here and I think: “I feel a little bad, because that person is such a complete moron that they aren’t even aware of what an a-hole they look like driving around in that oversized, overpriced vehicle”. Look, maybe if you have a dirt road or something you need to deal with, although if you have so much money that you can afford to destroy your Hummer (or Land Crusier or Land Rover) offroad then you might want to consider doing something constructive with it instead of embracing your ridiculously childish association with capital.

4. Gurus? Look, if I want to worship something at least have the decency not to try and insert yourself into the position. Anyone who wants to be worshipped should be beaten to death on principle. Anyone who is looking that hard to worship someone else should also be beaten to death just to prevent them from having insecure children who are in danger of being taught how not to think for themselves as well. Go find yourself a Jim Jones and drink the punch, or wake up and own your personal responsibilites and join what is best about the human race (no, not compassion! The greatest attribute of humans, at least as far as I am concerned, is the ability to create something where before there was nothing, which can only be accomplished while awake and owning ones sense of self! Compassion is wonderful and invaluable when excercised with awareness, but it can also be a tool for a mouse like acceptance of ones own inability to deal with pain and instead deal with the pain of others).

5. This list might get really long - I’ll add more later. You know, lawns and houses and conservative thinking and …

If we finally succeed in this mad rush to conquer nature so that we do not die, then I feel certain life will turn bitter and poisonous. We will have bought something we no longer care for, and long for a time when the natural order of things gave us everything we ever wanted except complete dominion over it.

I stepped out to my deck tonight to look at the stars, and the cars, and a (reasonably bad) poem came to mind, so:

looking at the sky
nothing has changed
our effort to change
the lights, the cars
make us jabbering monkies
we lizard kings
slick back our hair
agrandize ourselves
pat the collective and hairy ass
corporate conquerers without mercy
the frail and gentle aspect of nature
lost to us, blind
and angry predators
with sorrow in awareness
but unable to stop
plodding on in defeat, and defeat
ourselves, always
always we muscle our way forward
to forget pain and loss
for what we have taken
from ourselves
with sword and pen, televison and philosophy,
religion and power, money and control,
fear and love, and glory
we hand over our intent for our desire
we bask in the glow of our demise
we take what might have been given
and we die, like we did yesterday and tomorrow
and if we can arrive where we intend
at a place where we have conquered our nature
then without death or remorse we will live
undead and empty
unalive and with nothing but our own
wasted shell
rattling in some icy wind

perhaps this poem seems a bit nihlist. However, that isn’t my feeling having written it at all - perhaps melancholy. We must step up, we must move to meet our potential and stop preening. If we don’t, I’m quite certain (not fearful, certain) that the price will be greater than any of us can bear. It’s really not about us anymore, but about what we have done and are doing to the whole circle of life, our responsibity and legacy.

I think, tomorrow or whenever the next entry occurs, I may write a story. My own experiences communicated are a little tiresome, but in fiction they may take some kind of wobbling flight …

Well, I have all sorts of witty (um, or not) things to say, but they all took on a rather pale demeanor when held against the brilliant light of this little video of Asha taken yesterday morning, and so I am going to include that here instead. Ignore the troll-servant with her. It’s pretty low-quality (computer-cam), but still pretty big so you need broadband or a lot of patience. You need DIVX to see it …

Well, it’s official. The shortest day of the year is done. We had a bit of a pagan solstice celebration complete with fire in our backyard fire pit and consumption of strangely intoxicating brews, but minus the human sacrifice and the nudity (We considered sacrificing the cats, but they proved difficult to catch). The stars and moon were out, the weather clear and, once I had recovered from the shock of my network going down for several hours, I really enjoyed bringing in solstice with friends.

Here’s the holiday card (I created the image using Poser, 3d Studio Max and Photoshop) my wife and I sent out to friends and family:

and here is the poem I wrote that was on the inside:

I have grown up with Christmas tradition, and there is a lot of it that I really appreciate. The decoration, the tree, even the ridiculous iconography like Santa and Rudolph, and so on. The older I get, though, the more I struggle with the somewhat twisted aspect our consumer based culture has brought to Christmas, the buying frenzy that ensues right after Thanksgiving. It’s simply not what love, or showing appreciation for someone else, is about, but I’m quite certain that were I a merchant (or corporation) it’s the signal I would want everyone to get - that love is all about how much you spend. Gee, while we’re at it, lets get someone we love a diamond! A useless hunk of rock that has arrived here literally on the back of some local miner (read about diamonds and De Beers - it’s a sick enterprise.

Here’s a small tidbit: http://www.historyhouse.com/uts/debeers/).

Anyway, that, and the religious aspect of Christmas both turn me off, and what the hell is Hanukkah (gesundheit). Never mind, it’s a rhetorical question, as in “What the hell is wrong with that guy?”. Certainly I would feel similar to it as I do Christmas were I raised with it, but these religious holidays make me wonder where everyone’s sense of self has gone. You know, when someone asks about you, do you say: “Hi, I’m an albino Republican Gen-x Catholic with occasional bouts of guilty pagan underpinnings.” What’s with all the systemization of belief, and why would any of us allow others to do our systemization of belief for us? By that I mean, if you are going to structure your moral code and belief system around something, don’t you think it would help to sort of formulate your own opinion based on your life experiences, rather than get it from some book on Buddhist philosophy? Read the book, yes! Become a Buddhist, no! Put your brain back on and start wearing it proudly, it’s there for a reason. You are allowed to develop your own belief system, I promise, and although it will be painful (every time you turn around there will be someone else with their head firmly planted in the dark orifice that is Christianity or Hindu or something), it will be well worth it. You too can turn into a sarcastic ass that no one wants to hear from!

Um, I do like the holiday season. This year I’m focusing a bit on nature rather than “just-add-water” holiday structure and cheer, though. Feel free to join me in that, its all around us and it speaks to us in whispers that the universe will provide and that there is some reason for all this, some reason that we are not meant to know, not now, because the joy is in the quest to know.

I feel quite a lot better having had a good rant about the U.S. My life is for the most part back to its version of normal following the election of “team-monkey”. I am, however, a bit ill today, so I’m spending most of my time reading Paul Johnson’s A History of the American People. Why would a person do that to themselves, you ask - read a history of the United States? I should add that it comes on the heels of reading Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. Is there a less interesting subject than a complete history of America, except perhaps a history of the Inuit? Did the Inuit keep any sort of non-verbal recorded history, I wonder, at all? Well, knowing that the history we teach in the public schools is watered down, varyingly partisan crap (take my word for it if you are uncertain of this), I have made it a goal to give my daughter Asha as unadulterated and clear a view of history as possible, when she is old enough to care. This will probably be around the time she is my age, or never, but at any rate, finding an objective version of history is amazingly difficult, maybe even impossible. Howard Zinn’s book certainly isn’t objective, but it presents an excellent socialist view of how things came down, and there is certainly a lot of good insight into American history. Unfortunately, I am not a socialist, and so it gets a little bleak and whiny for me at times. Paul Johnson’s version is the conservative, I love Americans (from a Brit no less) version of American History, and it makes me feel quite a bit better about being here, even to the point of wanting to go back and revise my previous blog entry somewhat - but this would be ingenuous so it won’t be happening. However, calling it unbiased would be a fallacy as well - it is evident to me that Paul Johnson has a warm squishy spot for religion and conservatives, and while this is all fine and dandy, it isn’t really my cup of tea, either, as you may have guessed if you have read any of my previous blogs. I will say, however, that the two books provide such opposing views of America, that taken together and digested may just be part of the answer, a little taste of real American history.

So, educated, benign anarchy may take a bit longer to germinate as a viable political alternative to killing for life-style, or no-energy, whiny socialized sameness. Sure, calling Democrats or Socialists whiny and the same, or Republicans or Capitalists killers supporting their life-styles, are extremes of both views - most of us float meanderingly somewhere in the middle, but I still feel that the present administration has brought things to a head - the Democrats have never been whinier and more annoying, and the Republicans never more offensive and stinky.

I agree with Noam Chomsky that things are actually getting better, people are waking up to the realities of the injustices that have been piled on the heads of the poor, the working class, the third world, the environment, and others for a very long time. I’m not certain I want to be around when those who intend to correct these imbalances hand it to the perpetrators, though. Some of the perpetrators are my friends and relatives - maybe even me (I drive, I own property, etc.).

Todays video frame of me disgusted and ashamed:

I should start this by saying I have little taste for the Democratic Party, and perhaps a smidgen less for the Republican Party. Both parties seem to me an indication of a person who can’t quite think for themselves but needs a structure behind them to clarify a path. Well, here’s a newsflash - until we, the people, begin educating ourselves to think with real tolerance and love, and educate ourselves to help others when we can, and stop thinking only in our personal best interest, and start trusting each other when it counts, we cannot have a society that works well. It will always be an uphill battle. Government cannot do it for us - we are the society, and so the society becomes what we are. Get it? We can’t tell people how to behave at gunpoint - they must understand what works, and what doesn’t, and basically agree to it, which means the rest of us need to exercise a whole lot of tolerance to help that to happen. That means we don’t care what religion they are, or what food they eat, or how they bury their loved ones, or who (or even what) they sleep with. It means we pay attention to the really important things, like whether or not they intend to severely hurt/rape/kill someone in our community, and stop them permanently if so, or whether or not they are really great with their kids, and supportive of those around them, and we reward them with our love or help or whatever if they do. The rest is just incidental crap that we simply have to let go of. If you can’t understand that, if you believe that we can’t be trusted (even after a generation of training our children to understand this) and it’s governments job to keep us in line, then don’t bother reading the rest of this, because it will probably just confuse you. So now on to the real rant.

I have been to Europe to work several times, once in Germany and once in Southern France. During those times, I entered into a number of conversations with the people I was working with (Architects and Civil Engineers in Germany and Software Engineers in France working for Compaq). In most of these conversations, I was presented with a pretty so-so view of the U.S., which I sensed was a diplomatic way of handling what was actually a dumbfounded, what�s wrong with the U.S. way of looking at our country, along with some real appreciation of certain things like our music and culture as well. This was around the time that Bush Senior was in office, and into the Clinton administration. I always defended my country with what I think were arguments of real substance about some of the things that make the U.S. great. For example, I let our European friends know that I felt no other country could field the kind of amazing weirdos with a smattering of genius that we have seen in the U.S. with the same consistency, such as the founders of Apple Computers. In Europe, and many other countries around the world, people just don’t let their family members go slink into the garage to play with electronic gadgets at dinner time like we do here in the U.S, at least not as commonly. And when we didn’t make great weirdos, we attracted them, because of the strength of character and open-mindedness of the U.S. I have always been a staunch supporter of the United States, and I have at one time or another diplomatically defended it against Brazilians, French, Germans and other Americans, most (or all) of whom were quite intelligent but were at times unaware some of the real strengths of this country.

But that was then. Around four years ago, things started to get a little strange, and then they really started to go south. If you know what I mean and agree, then you have already heard most of it, and if you don’t, then you probably won’t listen anyway, so I won’t go into detail about some of the real problems with the Bush administration. Anyone who can’t see the at least potential conflict of interest in an administration that has strong ties to the oil industry and corporate interest sending our children to the Middle East with guns needs to go shoot themselves in the head. Please. For all of us. That’s it. Pick up the gun. Make sure its loaded. You won’t feel a thing. There we go. I feel much better already - the collective IQ just went up 1/10000th of a point or so.

The U.S. has always had its dark side, though, just as every other country that made it this far has. I think that we can all at least agree on that point. We have at times furthered our personal interests at the expense of others, and turned a blind eye when reminded of this. It is simply the way of things, we say in our minds, and progress must be fed on the blood of the weak (well, maybe we don’t say that to ourselves, but it’s true, isn’t it?). We did it under Clinton, and every president before him. But now it is really, really bad. We are doing some really terrible things with impunity, and telling ourselves, our own people that we are doing it for the good of those we are killing, that they need our version of Democracy. We are not a Democracy, by the way, but rather a Democratic Republic… see the following if you care to:

http://www.mackinac.org/print.asp?ID=3400,
http://www.indixie.com/indixie/Articles/Republic.htm,
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/AmericanIdeal/aspects/demrep.html,
http://www.tax-freedom.com/ta19007.htm.

So, the last four years have been making me feel somewhat bad about my country and the direction it was taking. After 38 years of defending this country because I loved it (well, 22 years - I am 38 years old), I am ashamed to be an American. Ashamed and a little disgusted. And believe me, I don’t do ashamed well, because I try very hard to be a good person to those around me, and to those I love, and treat everyone I meet with due respect, and I have seen the great things in this country. I am ashamed because we have validated this behavior, we have given it the stamp of approval, by re-electing the monkey and his entourage of turd-flinging primates. But more about that later.

I think these terrible things are happening because of money and fear.

1. Fear of those who do things differently than us is at times justified, like when people put animals in Microwaves, or when women are beaten for saying something out of turn. There are cultures that are different than us that do some things that really are pretty bad. However, most of the fear I am seeing really isn’t justified, like when a so-called Christian fears and hates a so-called Muslim for having a distinct ideological perspective on things. Isn’t being a true Christian or Muslim about non-judgment and love?

2. Money because we are supporting a very strong corporate system with all of our considerable energy. Unfortunately, those corporations are making themselves strong on the blood of others, the blood of our ‘enemies’. This is so obvious to me that I don’t see a reasonable argument to it, but I would be open to hearing one anyway! In addition to being simply wrong (BAD), it is also making our rich strong, our poor weak, and it is destroying our environment.

Well, on the subject of fear, I’m neither a Christian, nor a Muslim, just a good person who wants the best for myself and those around me, so leave me and my family and the people I love the F*** OUT of your sick ideological war. Go kill each other off if you must, if someone different than you is such an affront to your sensibility, your artificial morality. I won’t shed a tear. Just don’t leave your stinky corpses piled up in the yards of otherwise caring people or expect any of us to help.

While your at it, take a look around and try to see whether we are in Iraq spending more on creating new schools (that they may or may not want), or more on sucking their oil out one of the worlds largest oil tables. If you can really convince yourself that we are there doing really great deeds after taking a real look, not simply supporting our own greedy corporate structure and need for SUV’s, then I envy you your ability to deceive yourself. You will be a much happier and well adjusted person than me as we proceed to reap a path of destruction through the lands of everyone who does things differently than us, or who has something we think we want or need. Yes, Sadam is and has been a bad man. However, if you can convince yourself that Iraq is, or ever has been, a real and major threat to our welfare (and I mean as in hurting you physically. I don’t mean threatening your overpriced SUV) then you have all the thinking power of a pinto bean. Yes, weapons of mass destruction could have given Sadam real, if somewhat temporary, influence over the Middle East - the crazy bastard might have even caused the complete destruction of both Israel and Iraq. He might have affected our precious oil. Oh no! Not that! But lets think a bit about weapons of mass destruction - we invented them, we are the only ones to have used them in the context of war, and now we are going to be the ones responsible for making certain they are properly policed? How ridiculous. We are going to stop China, Korea, Russia and surrounding nations, India, Pakistan, and everyone else that gets their hands on nuclear weapons from having them? I don’t think so. So the idea seems to be to storm troop into any country that threatens our economic well being and that is weak enough, and has stuff we want, to be taken on. Iraq, and every other nation on the planet, is popping out little round turds of fear when the United States comes around - we have no peers with respect to military or economic might, although we wouldn’t want to really get into it with China. We control the U.N., and the W.T.O. Other nations do what we say, or we f*ck them up, economically or physically. If you can’t see that, then get your fat head out of CNN and FOX, and the collective conservative ASS, and take a look around you. How else do you think we could piss the world off like we have and continue to do what we want, giving them the finger the whole time. What are they going to do, bomb another building? Well, yes, probably, but that’s all they can do. Oh no. I’m shaking in my expensive, well made boots. Well, I guess we’ll just have to go take over their biggest city, and their entire economy, and tell their people they have to be inside by nine not to be shot, and kill tens of thousands of them for being so foolish as to take out another building. Gee, why don’t I feel all that threatened yet. I guess we’ll just have to keep screwing around with other nations until they get really pissed off and decide to actually use one of the readily available weapons of mass destruction we seem to think we can control. Heres some stuff worth reading:

http://blog.zmag.org/ttt/archives/000309.html#more
http://www.empirenotes.org/november04.html#04nov041

By the way, a short history of Kuwait (in case you weren’t aware of the nature of our relationship with Kuwait, which most people amazingly still are not):

1756: The Sabah dynasty is established with a shaykh as the leader. The shaykhdom is nominally under Ottoman rule, but has de facto independence.
1899: When the Ottoman empire tries to take control over the shaykhdom with German aid, the shaykh asks for British assistance and protection, which he gets.
1914: Britain recognize the independence of Kuwait. Wahhabis of Najd in Arabia attack Kuwait after this.
1921: Peace between Kuwait and the Wahhabis is restored, after the British gave aid to Kuwait.
1922: Neutral zone established between Kuwait and Arabia.
1923: Borders between Iraq and Kuwait are drawn on the map.
1938: Petroleum is discovered.
1946: Gulf Oil Corporation, British and US owned, starts extraction of oil.
1951: The Kuwaiti shyakh gets control of half of the oil revenues, money that were used for developing the infrastructure and welfare services.
1961 June 19: End of British protection, the shaykh changes his title to emir.
- Kuwait joins the Arab League. Iraq objects strongly to this and claims that Kuwait is part of their territory.
- December: An assembly is set down to draft a constitution.
1963 January: The constitution is proclaimed. According to this, the emir has the executive power, organized with a group of ministers.
- January 23: A national assembly is elected.
- October: Iraq gives up its claim on Kuwait.
1966: Saudi Arabia and Kuwait agree upon borders, and the neutral zone is dropped. The two countries also agree upon cooperation in exploitation of oil reserves in the border area.
1973: Rise in oil prices has tremendous positive effects on Kuwaiti economics.

So, here’s how it goes: the Ottoman Empire is defeated and France and Britain divide it up at the end of World War I - Kuwait becomes a British protectorate, which Iraq doesn’t like at all. Well, as it turns out, Kuwait and Iraq share one of the worlds largest oil fields, and Kuwait was tending to sell the oil at really, really cutthroat rates just prior to being attacked by Iraq. We didn’t like the army Iraq was forming any more than Kuwait did. Did we ask Kuwait just to sell their oil they share with Iraq (who doesn’t like them) at really low prices to cut Iraq out of the game, thus goading Iraq into attacking Kuwait? Well, maybe, but that’s just good business if we did, and there were other things like a big debt owed by Iraq to Kuwait after the Iran-Iraq war and so on. I’m certainly not saying we were horrible and bad to go there the first time, although arguments could be presented to that effect. What I am saying is that we as a nation have a shameful interest in the Middle East - this simply cannot be argued - we are oil-crazy. Of course there is also Israel, but even if related (does it exist as a bastion to help us keep a foothold to suit our interests there?) that’s sort of another thing.

OK, so I didn’t really like all that - us being in other countries protecting our economic interests (i.e. SUV’s) at the expense of their lives, including the inevitable lives of non-combatants (on their side). But I still loved this country, and supported it as best I could even while disagreeing with some of its policies. I was still a patriot.

But now I am ashamed. Now we have reelected an administration that has told the world, and the citizens of the United States, a number of things that I find abhorrent, terrible, and even evil (by my standards of evil). We have validated these messages by reelecting a small and bad man who operates out of fear and hate. We have said that the very bad deeds we have perpetrated on the world, on our neighbors, is OK.

We have told the world on no uncertain terms that we are the only path to freedom, the only hope for rightness and goodness, and that we intend to impose that freedom by not allowing anyone else to threaten our military superiority. This is patently ridiculous - there are many ways of governing a people well, many ways of being free. Ours is one way, certainly not the only way. Telling the world that we will kill them if they create weapons is like beating people to death on a small boat when they build a knife to defend themselves against us (since we are holding a knife, in this analogy) if we happen to go crazy in the sun, which we seem to have done! I guess we are the only ones on the boat allowed to have a knife, because we are that afraid now, that fearful. Maybe its because we have taken all their food, and we know they might resent it just a little bit. What do you think?

We have told homosexuals that they are less than heterosexuals, somehow not natural, and so they cannot marry. This is a crime against many good people who simply do not deserve nor warrant the bigoted fear of small minds that need to refer to a book to know the difference between right and wrong. A book written a long time ago, by men who purport to have heard the voice of some dude (Jehovah). Maybe they did or maybe they didn’t, but the last time I had to suffer through some biblical crap I recall that vengeance is GODS to mete out. Not ours. So let those who do something we believe is going to send them to some uncomfortable place after they die be punished accordingly. In other words, get your fat, asinine head out of other peoples business and into your own, and let them do what they like. My definition of marriage, and my belief, is that is a beautiful agreement between two (or even more, as far as I am concerned!) people (or maybe even animals or rocks - I’ll have to think on that one) of any color or gender who are saying simply that they love each other. If you believe it is a pact between a man, a woman, and GOD, fine, I’m OK with that, and I shake your hand for the integrity of your belief, and would invite you to the table. Can’t you be OK with my definition too, or do you simply have to be right?

By the way, if man(kind) was made in GODS image, then logic dictates that GOD is a big FAG, and an DYKE, as well as a heterosexual BREEDER, and all of the other things that make we as people of the world what we are, or aren’t. If you can’t accept that, then you are simply a HYPOCRITE, the worst all-caps word here of all, because you want it one way then the other as suits you, and things simply don’t work that way. GOD is either all, and love, and responsible for punishment and judgment, or he isn’t. You do the math.

http://www.underthesamesun.org/content/2004/11/index.html#000262

We have told the world, and our people, that our corporations are the path to plenty, and that they will treat us and our environment with care and respect. This is simply not true. It is not true now, and it never has been true. Corporations look out for their bottom line, this is the simple fact born out by minimal analysis. The present administration has helped damage our environment in ways that we cannot even begin to appreciate, and our valued middle class that validates our version of capitalism has begun to disappear. Without that, we will be just another culture of extreme haves and have-nots, even more than we are now. Many of my educated white male friends work hard and cannot buy houses - why bother mentioning my female, or non-Caucasian, or minimally educated friends, for whom it is even more difficult because of our culture. It takes money to make money, more so now than ever before.

We have told our people that it’s OK to be afraid of others, that they really are out to get us - that they are going to bomb us. There’s some truth to that - we certainly suffered plenty of it with the World Trade Center, but in many falsehoods there is some truth. We do not have to live in fear, and doing so makes us vulnerable to those who would control us with fear, as has been done since the beginning of human history. Even when fear is warranted, we must not operate out of fear - we should listen to it, but we should not let it make our decisions for us, and that is what is happening. We are allowing our freedoms to be taken away from us in unprecedented ways, and this is making us fools, and now we have validated that and said its OK by putting the bad monkeys that have made it happen back in office.

We have told our people and the world that difference, real difference, will not be tolerated, that the Christian religious right (and somewhat right) is the right way to think and to be. This is the greatest crime of all, to me, because I believe the strength of the U.S. is in our difference, sometimes our extreme difference. Yes, family structure has suffered here, but then is it so heinous a loss that we must punish with the law those who won’t eat dinner at the table? Of course not, but we do punish those who smoke or ingest certain plants (otherwise doing no harm), and we punish those we don’t understand with hatred and violence. These are not people who are holding guns to our heads, or to the heads of our loved ones. These are not people who are going to make society collapse any more than the fat, inbred ahole who feels the need to shoot at woodpeckers with his .22 for sport (whom I would continue to allow to do so even while not liking it, at least until I stopped seeing wood peckers come around and then I might need to have a conversation with said ahole). Let it be. It’s OK. Just because someone is different than you does not mean they are out to get you, even though I personally worry a bit more about an ultra-conservative with a gun than a fag with leathers and a whip. Neither is my cup of tea, but one is a lot angrier than the other, and a much greater potential for real harm. Goodbye difference. Goodbye Apple Computer, Xerox Park, writers, painters, musicians, and philosophers. We might not put you in jail, but you have been told that it is not OK to be different, unless maybe it is amusing. Don’t threaten our idea of family, our idea of faith, our idea of morality, because we know who you are now. Can’t you see it doesn’t work that way� We can’t constrain difference and keep its beauty. Difference is fragile, and it needs support. Who cares if someone’s habits are unpleasant to us� It is simply not worth the cost. Ignore the guy who feels the need to nail his penis to a board, because the formula that made him is the formula of real difference, and it’s the same formula that made Einstein and Joyce and Orwell and maybe even you. Maybe. So let it be, and if you feel really strong, then support it. But don’t make it go away. This world will be so much less without it.

So what will I do? I don’t know - I have little or no need for violence - this is not about violent revolution or anything equally ridiculous. I want my family to be well, so unless they are really threatened then I won’t need to turn into a Hyde of destruction. Move to France or Spain, or Italy with my family? I hate to say it, but my biggest fear about doing so is the U.S. and its drive for world domination might actually destabilize my new home, and that I would have to defend myself and my family. So does that mean I have to be part of a morally crippled system just to be safe from it, while inadvertently helping it along its path by my silence, my unintended support?

I don’t know. It’s a sad day. I still love and value most of the Americans, and the Americas, that I know, though, even a few who supported the monkey crew, so maybe that will be enough to get through four more bad-monkey years.

Another entry tonight. This one seemed really important when it popped into my brain.

My mom is in a wheelchair right now, although I and everyone who loves her have hopes that this won’t last too long. She is in a very advanced state of breast cancer that has metastasized to her bones, and one night after receiving a bit of radiation treatment for a tumor, her thigh bone simply snapped because it was weak from the damaged bone. I hope to talk more about who she is another time, as a person other than my mother, because she warrants it for her strength, character and nature. She couldn’t bear the burden she has been given with more grace.

Well, my mom gave birth to me, and she raised me, and I love her as much a I can love, as a mom. She gave me so much that I could never repay her - paradoxically she gave me something so important, so huge, that I don’t exactly feel the need to. As a father I can see this now in a way I couldn’t before, that as a child there was nothing outside of my needs, no different than my daughter - for my mother and for we loving parents there can be only giving. So ideas like debt, repayment, those things have no place in this, those things are tiny tiny little things next to love, and this is what she gave me: An awareness of what love is, a thing bigger than reciprocity, a thing that neither requires recognition nor bows to it but instead is full in itself.

This sometimes makes it hard, because in a time when she needs things that transcend ideas of time and energy, things that are bigger than the concept of giving but are simply needs only love can fill, I at times find myself limited by ideas, thoughts, and feelings that are small and less than love. But I know what love is, because she gave that to me , and so now, when it matters most, I find it easier than ever, I am more prepared than ever, to let her know that all others things aside I couldn’t love her more than I do, and my mind searches for things that can bring her happiness and contentment. Not because it is due her, but because she showed me, somewhere along the line she showed me, that there is something much, much bigger than what we are due, what we are owed, because love cannot be repayed, it can only be felt.

Someone (that would be Muneca) finds my banter entertaining, which is at least better than not, and so strangely inspired I revisit my own thought process made, well, not flesh, but, um … um … um … uh … uh … how’s about: real, you know, as in, having form, existing where before it did not. Ok, then…

Having had sushi this evening, not in a religious sense but rather simply having consumed it like a big, fat white male taking what was rightfully mine from the ocean which owes me simply because I have conquered it, it is weaker than myself, it is bent to my will, but not just mine, no, it is bent to the will of all those who would suck the life from it’s hapless denizens, it’s weak spineless vertebrates and invertebrates alike… oh god thank you SAFEWAY! Thanks you LUCKY (now ALBERTSONS), and ANDRONICOS, and WHOLE FOODS, and, and … I need to go toss a crab in some boiling water, remove the spine and guts from a fish, uh, oh, where was I? Was I rambling?

Oh yeah. Sushi. Yum. There is nothing like Japanese folk dressed up for a western pagan holiday, while eating raw fish and other distinctly Japanese delicacies. This should not be surprising - to ever experience such a thing again would qualify me as a lucky man, at least in the sense of being one who has experienced Japanese Folk dressed up for a western (and pagan) holiday while eating raw fish. There was something missing though, and it may have to wait until my very special Halloween blog entry, which I am very excited about, because I love love love love love love Halloween as no other holiday, bar none. Easter is a turd, and Christmas is really twisted. Notice how Halloween was the one holiday the Christians (mommy! daddy! I’m all alone! There must be someone other than myself responsible for this crazy mess, right? Um, daddy?) couldn’t really bend to their will - the best they could do was make everybody forget what it was all about.

Do the Japanese have an event that recognizes ancestral contributions, a time in which the dead revisit the living, as do some other cultures? Of course, Halloween as conceived has become a time when people who might otherwise know better dress up as angels, or FBI agents, ar cowboys, or even pumpkins, in the United States.

I’m only going to say this in my BLOG once, however many years this stupid thing floats about using up digital space. It really is that important. If you were otherwise unaware of this, you should dress up as something DEAD for Halloween, and only as something dead - otherwise, the dead, when milling about looking for something lively and tasty to drag back with them to the netherworld might just nab your sorry vibrating butt-plug ass.

Looking dead you make a small target. And unless I already know and like you, I will laugh my ass off (before shedding a tear) because you probably are just one of many to eschew my wake up call. Now’s you’re chance. Be John Lennon, but dead (that would be six — oops! correction: four bullet holes in the back, in case you were wondering), or Jim morrison (post mortem), a skelton or a ghost of any sort, butt plug laden or no. Dress up as a cowboy, and turn the wrong non-euclidean corner when the dead walk with us on All-Hallows, and when you get dragged off to some time and space that defies quantum-theory and the laws of relativity, and my words will echo in your little monkey brain (we all have little monkey brains, not just you) right after the loud “what the fuck” that preceeds them.

I could be wrong, you know, but if you beleive in a divine male ass-cramp called GOD figure that is actually responsible for all this, or some female Gaia that has a rought structural clue of where things are headed, then this shoulds be an easy pill to swallow. I’m not saying I don’t believe in those things, oh no, you don’t get off that easy - I’m simply saying that I’m in no hurry to know what isn’t apparent. Ancestors walking with us in two days, given what I feel every Halloween since I was tiny tiny, that feels a little more likely to me than GOD!, but who am I to say this or that for certain? Dress up as a tampon at your own peril.