While waiting to hear back from Euro Tech about getting my 325i serviced due to a crunching sound I can't identify, I ponder the universe and movies like "Reuben, Reuben," "Her Alibi," "Silent Movie," "Monks: The Transatlantic Flashback," and "Airplane!".
Are you Accidental, Occidental, Oriental or Confidential?
My wife and I like to listen to books on tape/CD during long automobile-based trips. Lately, we listened to the 12-disc audio set of "A Tale of Two Cities," a sad but hopeful, triumphant but tragic story of regular lives caught in unusual times.
The narrator's voice, properly English, reminded me of the voice behind "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
In some ways, the stories are all the same: X vs. Y, taking Z into account.
Masks stacked up ready for charades.
I read war books as a child in order to study how to prevent them as an adult.
I read business philosophy books in order to study how unphilosophical we really are.
And always in the background, the steady flow of life.
I do not own the world. The universe is but a parlor game of illusions.
These words do not exist, coming as they do out of electronic bits.
All is all. And yet all is not as it appears.
People want a narrative, unevenly paced, exciting, tense, loving, romantic, deeply layered yet easy to understand, never sure about the ending but assured the ending indeed will occur assuredly.
Tom Swiftian in adverbial niceties.
Can a blog tell you what you cannot see in a blog?
Can the truth tell lies?
My only goal, despite appearances, is to set one word down after another to give the people what they want in batches of subcultural narratives tied into one big story about how we'll live to see another day in this forum or another form, for 'im or 'er.
Lift the blinders, unloose the leashes, release the chains, restore sanity where intolerable insanity has no place and get life as we know it moving off this planet toward the endless horizon of space in which our new forms of life will prosper in our stead.
We'll be like Sydney Carton and the young woman standing at the guillotine, giving our lives for others who will remember us in their own way. Hopefully, our lives will end less violently but our lives will end all the same, making a little bit of room for the next lives here and yet to be.
Thus one generation thinks it lives for itself while living for all following generations, instead.
We live in this moment together, seven billion personal reasons to call this moment one's own. Can we not see we live for one purpose only?: to ensure the states of energy we call ourselves find similarity in moments yet to be?
The religions of the world belong to all of us, whether we belong to them or not. Our hobbies, our jobs, our businesses, our governments - all of them enhance our lives.
It is time to find out what the Book of the Future says we'll be doing in a few years hence. Time to show you/me/us that trends trend up and trends trend down, with new trends trading places with old trends and old trends mixing with older trends to become new old-fashioned out-of-fashion fashionable trendlines.
Seven billion people are all members of the world government. Globalisation is what our species has always been about. Sure, we'd like superheroes to come flying in to save us from the less tolerable members of our species nearby but we've got ourselves to rescue ourselves from ourselves.
Use the power of the majority to protect the beliefs of the minorities because we're all part of one minority or another.
Keep laughing 'cause none of us get out of here alive.
2010-09-21
From lampposts to falling axe blades...
...the French know a thing or two about revolutionary reactions:
...the tumbrils begin to discharge their loads. The ministers of Sainte Guillotine are robed and ready. Crash!—A head is held up, and the knitting-women who scarcely lifted their eyes to look at it a moment ago when it could think and speak, count One.
The second tumbril empties and moves on; the third comes up. Crash!—And the knitting-women, never faltering or pausing in their Work, count Two.
The supposed Evremonde [Sydney Carton] descends, and the seamstress is lifted out next after him. He has not relinquished her patient hand in getting out, but still holds it as he promised. He gently places her with her back to the crashing engine that constantly whirrs up and falls, and she looks into his face and thanks him.
"But for you, dear stranger, I should not be so composed, for I am naturally a poor little thing, faint of heart; nor should I have been able to raise my thoughts to Him who was put to death, that we might have hope and comfort here to-day. I think you were sent to me by Heaven."
"Or you to me," says Sydney Carton. "Keep your eyes upon me, dear child, and mind no other object."
"I mind nothing while I hold your hand. I shall mind nothing when I let it go, if they are rapid."
"They will be rapid. Fear not!"
The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but they speak as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to heart, these two children of the Universal Mother, else so wide apart and differing, have come together on the dark highway, to repair home together, and to rest in her bosom.
"Brave and generous friend, will you let me ask you one last question? I am very ignorant, and it troubles me—just a little."
"Tell me what it is."
"I have a cousin, an only relative and an orphan, like myself, whom I love very dearly. She is five years younger than I, and she lives in a farmer's house in the south country. Poverty parted us, and she knows nothing of my fate—for I cannot write—and if I could, how should I tell her! It is better as it is."
"Yes, yes: better as it is."
"What I have been thinking as we came along, and what I am still thinking now, as I look into your kind strong face which gives me so much support, is this:—If the Republic really does good to the poor, and they come to be less hungry, and in all ways to suffer less, she may live a long time: she may even live to be old."
"What then, my gentle sister?"
"Do you think:" the uncomplaining eyes in which there is so much endurance, fill with tears, and the lips part a little more and tremble: "that it will seem long to me, while I wait for her in the better land where I trust both you and I will be mercifully sheltered?"
"It cannot be, my child; there is no Time there, and no trouble there."
"You comfort me so much! I am so ignorant. Am I to kiss you now? Is the moment come?"
"Yes."
She kisses his lips; he kisses hers; they solemnly bless each other. The spare hand does not tremble as he releases it; nothing worse than a sweet, bright constancy is in the patient face. She goes next before him—is gone; the knitting-women count Twenty-Two.
"I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die."
The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, the pressing on of many footsteps in the outskirts of the crowd, so that it swells forward in a mass, like one great heave of water, all flashes away. Twenty-Three.
They said of him, about the city that night, that it was the peacefullest man's face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked sublime and prophetic.
One of the most remarkable sufferers by the same axe—a woman—had asked at the foot of the same scaffold, not long before, to be allowed to write down the thoughts that were inspiring her. If he had given any utterance to his, and they were prophetic, they would have been these:
"I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument, before it shall cease out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out.
"I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more. I see Her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. I see her father, aged and bent, but otherwise restored, and faithful to all men in his healing office, and at peace. I see the good old man, so long their friend, in ten years' time enriching them with all he has, and passing tranquilly to his reward.
"I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their course done, lying side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know that each was not more honoured and held sacred in the other's soul, than I was in the souls of both.
"I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away. I see him, fore-most of just judges and honoured men, bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to this place—then fair to look upon, with not a trace of this day's disfigurement—and I hear him tell the child my story, with a tender and a faltering voice.
"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."[From the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/98/98-h/98-h.htm]
WARNING: Some experts believe they are correct
A child asked me if it made sense that the proponents of Randian philosophy (the philosophy in summary: those who work hard for a living deserve to keep their earnings without having to support others) should work in an institute that siphons off money from those who work hard for a living. In additional irony, the child asked, should those Randian com/proponents be allowed to be quoted saying that although they live off others' earnings, they feel that those who work hard for themselves should be put up on pedestals and not harassed for contributions to those who do not work for themselves.
I regret I had but one answer to give that child: we live in the age of entitlement, so, if you work, get used to carrying a harness for the other 50% who don't.
Moo-o-o-o-o.
A consultant approached me about the sensitive subject of Middle East Peace, a euphemism for the "Israel" situation that perplexes the Arab world. The consultant asked what should be done about the settlement issue.
Seeing as how the developers do not want to stop building settlements, I suggested to the consultant (for grins) to recommend the Randian method - the settlements should be sold to the highest bidders throughout the world, regardless of race, gender, nationality, political affiliation, favourite wrestler or hated football rival.
As I walked away, I overheard the consultant talking to his banking friends in the Grand Caymans. Sounds like the usual route to peace - undisguised bribery - will win the day.
Do we know what shapes us? My mother told me a story about her childhood.
In primary school one year, my mother and her classmates were supposed to memorise a complex set of dance routines composed of intertwining circles probably reminiscent of reels or perhaps country, square or round dancing form.
One day that year, a substitute teacher, of stern disciplinary bent, told my mother and the other students that the teacher was stepping out of the room for a while and strictly forbade any students from getting up out of their seats while the teacher was gone.
My mother, not the misbehaving sort, decided it was a good opportunity to practice the complex dances with her classmates so she encouraged them to get up and practice their steps.
The teacher returned, saw what looked to her like children out of control, and punished the whole class by slapping every student on the palm of the hand with a heavy ruler.
My grandfather was displeased that a teacher would use a heavy stick on young people, which could have permanently damaged or broken bones and ligaments in the children's hands. My mother never saw the teacher afterward.
However, my mother never misbehaved in school again, later graduating as valedictorian of her senior class.
I asked my mother if she thought she should consider the substitute teacher the primary reason for my mother's good grades and thus one of my mother's top inspirations for becoming valedictorian.
My mother did not think so.
However, my mother, as a teacher herself (now retired), has seen through the years many of her former first grade students thank her for being the teacher that made the most significant difference in their lives because she kept her class and students under control in order to optimise the learning environment.
Do you see the purpose you serve, the influence you have upon others? I doubt many of us do, because we rarely understand the changing states of energy around us in the moment, let alone the changes we latently cause years later.
I regret I had but one answer to give that child: we live in the age of entitlement, so, if you work, get used to carrying a harness for the other 50% who don't.
Moo-o-o-o-o.
A consultant approached me about the sensitive subject of Middle East Peace, a euphemism for the "Israel" situation that perplexes the Arab world. The consultant asked what should be done about the settlement issue.
Seeing as how the developers do not want to stop building settlements, I suggested to the consultant (for grins) to recommend the Randian method - the settlements should be sold to the highest bidders throughout the world, regardless of race, gender, nationality, political affiliation, favourite wrestler or hated football rival.
As I walked away, I overheard the consultant talking to his banking friends in the Grand Caymans. Sounds like the usual route to peace - undisguised bribery - will win the day.
Do we know what shapes us? My mother told me a story about her childhood.
In primary school one year, my mother and her classmates were supposed to memorise a complex set of dance routines composed of intertwining circles probably reminiscent of reels or perhaps country, square or round dancing form.
One day that year, a substitute teacher, of stern disciplinary bent, told my mother and the other students that the teacher was stepping out of the room for a while and strictly forbade any students from getting up out of their seats while the teacher was gone.
My mother, not the misbehaving sort, decided it was a good opportunity to practice the complex dances with her classmates so she encouraged them to get up and practice their steps.
The teacher returned, saw what looked to her like children out of control, and punished the whole class by slapping every student on the palm of the hand with a heavy ruler.
My grandfather was displeased that a teacher would use a heavy stick on young people, which could have permanently damaged or broken bones and ligaments in the children's hands. My mother never saw the teacher afterward.
However, my mother never misbehaved in school again, later graduating as valedictorian of her senior class.
I asked my mother if she thought she should consider the substitute teacher the primary reason for my mother's good grades and thus one of my mother's top inspirations for becoming valedictorian.
My mother did not think so.
However, my mother, as a teacher herself (now retired), has seen through the years many of her former first grade students thank her for being the teacher that made the most significant difference in their lives because she kept her class and students under control in order to optimise the learning environment.
Do you see the purpose you serve, the influence you have upon others? I doubt many of us do, because we rarely understand the changing states of energy around us in the moment, let alone the changes we latently cause years later.
And speaking of campaigns...
Was it that long ago that my seventh great-grandfather, in and amongst his many adventures, marched through the hills and valleys to rightfully claim home rule? Were he and his comrades not one of the original inspirations for the likes of the Million Man March?:
'Tis great to be remembered, should we so choose. We create the past in this fleeting moment. What past are you creating right now for your descendants to remember fondly later on?
Overmountain Men MarchWithout our ancestors, we wouldn't be here, talking about whatever we want to talk about whenever we feel like talking.
'Tis great to be remembered, should we so choose. We create the past in this fleeting moment. What past are you creating right now for your descendants to remember fondly later on?
2010-09-20
From The Department of Consistent Inconsistencies
Sad news for my campaign finance officer, who had connected a tap into the international monetary exchange system from which he had siphoned off trillions, and the many volunteers around the country who had organised launches to my presidential candidate party aboard the secret Bigelow/SpaceShipTwo joint development project I was going to announce later this week...
My campaign manager advised me, after discussion with the cackle of lawyers I intentionally overpay, that in the slate of promises I successfully used to receive a vote of confidence from the invisible board of directors for total control of the world government in hiding - especially my promise not to double-dip - I cannot serve as leader of the free world and world leader at the same time.
Therefore, with much regret at how much fun I will miss giving stump speeches about:
Back to putting intolerance in its place. No matter who you are or where you live, my network is watching you and making plans on how to put you to use for purposes which you'll never be fully aware!
My campaign manager advised me, after discussion with the cackle of lawyers I intentionally overpay, that in the slate of promises I successfully used to receive a vote of confidence from the invisible board of directors for total control of the world government in hiding - especially my promise not to double-dip - I cannot serve as leader of the free world and world leader at the same time.
Therefore, with much regret at how much fun I will miss giving stump speeches about:
- requirements that all voters must cite at least five promises the candidate for which they'll vote has made, with a guess as to which four promises will not be kept,
- selling a slew of pork barrels (containing everything under the sun but pork), in sizes from one that fits on a keychain to one that can barely roll down a six-lane carriageway, with prizes inside specially-marked packages,
- promising a pony in every garage (as soon as Ford completes its transfer of funds to my offshore account),
- guaranteeing a bottle of HFCS [a/k/a corn sugar] in every kitchen (having already received my ADM multimillion "donation"),
- warm stories recounting my childhood, including the mosquito I saved from a life of addiction to blood,
- finessing the art of heckling the hecklers,
Back to putting intolerance in its place. No matter who you are or where you live, my network is watching you and making plans on how to put you to use for purposes which you'll never be fully aware!
2010-09-19
Commodore PET
Speaking of deals, a friend asked how many contracts he needed to get canceled with a certain chemical company located on the Holston River to prove that annexing any more property will prove unprofitable for the local municipality. I told my friend let's wait and see. I've seen enough companies go bankrupt in that odourous town as it is, with enough mercury poisoning in the streams and creeks to make bottom-feeding politicians catfish wish they were born in a different watershed.
Like I said, give me something funny. Watching Chinese and Japanese argue over a little fishing is about as hilarious as wondering if people driving government vehicles late at night or on weekends are really conducting "official" business.
It's getting ugly around here and I'm not just talking about my BO or my 401(k).
Don't keep me entertained and I tend to get mischievous, sticking my nose into other people's business and causing havoc in order to tickle my funny bone for absolutely no purpose whatsoever.
Think I'll announce my candidacy for the U.S. presidency. I've got about as many credentials as the next person -- I promise I will not raise taxes, start a war or take a salary while in office. I'll make sure members of Congress take all the credit/blame they deserve. I'll turn U.S. government office buildings into free flat rentals for those with no place to live. They just have to vacate their flats during work hours so government employees can keep doing whatever it is they're doing now, only with soiled linens and pictures of other people's families in their cubicles (those working in outsourced customer service call centers will already be familiar with the situation). All my speeches will be available for sale to the bidder with the largest number of comedy writers on staff.
Time to write another story-within-a-building-story-building-a-story in the parallel universe called this blog. Hmm.... who wants to be permanent parody material on a putty pedestal?
Like I said, give me something funny. Watching Chinese and Japanese argue over a little fishing is about as hilarious as wondering if people driving government vehicles late at night or on weekends are really conducting "official" business.
It's getting ugly around here and I'm not just talking about my BO or my 401(k).
Don't keep me entertained and I tend to get mischievous, sticking my nose into other people's business and causing havoc in order to tickle my funny bone for absolutely no purpose whatsoever.
Think I'll announce my candidacy for the U.S. presidency. I've got about as many credentials as the next person -- I promise I will not raise taxes, start a war or take a salary while in office. I'll make sure members of Congress take all the credit/blame they deserve. I'll turn U.S. government office buildings into free flat rentals for those with no place to live. They just have to vacate their flats during work hours so government employees can keep doing whatever it is they're doing now, only with soiled linens and pictures of other people's families in their cubicles (those working in outsourced customer service call centers will already be familiar with the situation). All my speeches will be available for sale to the bidder with the largest number of comedy writers on staff.
Time to write another story-within-a-building-story-building-a-story in the parallel universe called this blog. Hmm.... who wants to be permanent parody material on a putty pedestal?
Alcoholic Commander In The National Guard? [not for children]
Well, well, well. Another interesting situation where national security is at risk because of a drinking problem and a CYAhole. If I was a high-level leader in charge of keeping Bubba bombers out of harm's way in the outer rings of hazmat womd territorial protection, I'd make sure my subordinates could handle their drinks without getting out of control (and thus, lying through their teeth to keep their jobs - how far will they carry their lies?).
But I'm not.
Instead, I'm barraged by those who want to get the modestly conservative voice heard, as in the following quote pointed out to me today [from 1 Timothy 2]:
Thus, the Christian crowd, ultraconservative or not, is asked if it is of literalist or figurativist belief. If the former, then one cannot support Palin, Pelosi, Oprah, O'Donnell, etc., if one believes this is a true Christian nation and 1 Timothy is literally true. If the latter, the Bible is a general guide subject to personal interpretation and anything goes.
Meanwhile, I've got to go cash a reality check that's about to expire. Somebody help me out here. I'm walking through the county fair funhouse mirror maze carrying my corn in a jar. Where's the exit. I need an outhouse, quick!
But I'm not.
Instead, I'm barraged by those who want to get the modestly conservative voice heard, as in the following quote pointed out to me today [from 1 Timothy 2]:
"9 I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, 10 but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.
11 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15 But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety."
Thus, the Christian crowd, ultraconservative or not, is asked if it is of literalist or figurativist belief. If the former, then one cannot support Palin, Pelosi, Oprah, O'Donnell, etc., if one believes this is a true Christian nation and 1 Timothy is literally true. If the latter, the Bible is a general guide subject to personal interpretation and anything goes.
Meanwhile, I've got to go cash a reality check that's about to expire. Somebody help me out here. I'm walking through the county fair funhouse mirror maze carrying my corn in a jar. Where's the exit. I need an outhouse, quick!
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