molecular

ends are beginnings
observe rotting flesh
molecules once built
begin to unmesh,
and drift once again
to the world for their use
yet unnatural humans
foment their abuse
we trick us with shiny
and have to have things
what we need is within us
it practically sings
for our souls
are unseen and
molecularly scarce
they strive for the meaning
they see through the farce
to truly behold
the unknowable truth
look into a mirror
to find your own proof

Big Picture Flash

DNA

Deep System Software Program.

Contesting for the greatest prize...Life.

Contesting on the world stage, soon to be galactic.
Maybe.
If we don't spoil it.

We are all forms
being taken
from points of light.

Advice For Myself 20 years ago

I'm into self inflicted suffering as well and have pretty much identical talents and likes.  Reading, writing, talking to people, being friendly, teaching and playing with children, playing music, being free.  Langston Hughes said he only wrote good poetry when he was miserable.  I won't worry about you, but you will be crossing my mind several times a day for several years.   Nothing I can do about it.  It will taper off with time. 

Cordelia found a conch in a dried up creek bed and wants to make a horn out of it.

As a substitute teacher, I continue to observe differences in people.  I see hundreds of children of all ages.  I can confidently say not all men are created equal.  We can be born with equal rights, and we are born in the same manner, but the differences in spirit, intellect, athletic ability, and determination are widely varying from person to person.  I have seen little Napoleons in the 2nd grade.  I have seen future presidents in 3rd.  I have also seen kids doomed to a life of failure and suffering. So dumb and raised by idiot scumbags. 

Sorry if that offends, but I can show you where they live and you can decide if it is accurate. The special ones stand out as leaders from a wee age.  What I see in you is not common.  Recognize your exceptional abilities and develop them. 

I'm telling you, though, that girl is bad, bad news.  So bad.  So so bad.  If you feel you love her, I warn you now that your subconscious is looking to teach you some painful lessons.  They will distract you from your life's purpose and take away from what you have to give humanity.

Laws Can't Be People

The continued inability of police and Springfield government agencies to address the astounding number of copper thefts has been on my mind lately.  I’ve been reading a book called “The Death of Common Sense” by Phillip K. Howard about how laws and process are taking away citizens rights to make good decisions.  A recent experience with a Springfield parking patrol strikes me as an interesting coincidence.  Let’s see if you agree with me about whether they have anything to do with each other.

I pulled up to the Capital Street side of Grace Lutheran Church to load my van with totes from a week long day camp.  The totes were just inside the door where I had left them to go get my van.  While directing the camp, I had seen at least 40 different cars and trucks pull into this area, so I considered it a loading zone.  As I ran around to the back of the minivan, telling my 2 kids to sit tight, a parking enforcement woman walked up and informed me that I was in a No Parking Zone.

It was clearly marked as such, so I could not deny her claim, but I stated that I was simply loading some totes and would be on my way.  She explained that it was not a loading zone, but a no parking zone.  I told her I wasn’t really parking, just loading. She asked if my van was in park. Being a wise guy, I told her it was in neutral, but the futility of the situation was evident. I got the point.  Meanwhile, a good friend of mine who had helped at the camp pulled up behind me to perform similar loading tasks.

She was also informed by the meter reader that it was a No Parking Zone.  My friend also stated that she was not parking, but loading.  As she began to walk towards the door after stating her purpose, I stopped her.  “Pam, this woman will give you a ticket if you walk away from your vehicle.”  I told her.  The woman confirmed this.  So I asked if we could park in the ally about 20 feet away.  The parking lady said sure.  We moved our cars and that was simple enough.  Another friend was going to get her van as this was going on.  She walked to her van and simply parked in the no parking zone to load. The meter reader had walked around the corner, so it was once again a free country.

BUT, when I was just finishing up my loading in the alley, here comes a FedEx truck behind me.  As he waits, half in the street, I quickly jumped in my van to get out of the way.  I had to drive around for three blocks to get back to the no parking area.  Because the meter reader was out of site, I pulled into the no parking zone with impunity just as 40 vehicles had done throughout the week.  I leisurely finished saying good bye to the good people who had worked so hard to make our camp happen.  I had moved from a spot where I was in no one’s way to an alley where I slowed down a delivery.  When the authority was not present, people parked where they were not supposed to with no ill effect.  No harm, no foul.

My point with all this is the same one Phillip K. Howard makes in his book.  Laws smother the decision making process by trying to make rules and procedures for every contingency.  Now back to copper thefts in Springfield.  When police arrived on the scene after one of our neighbors called them to report that copper thieves were IN our rental house, the police could not go in.  Without the owner present, they were not allowed to enter the premise.  What is befuddling to me is if they were doing a drug raid, they could bash the door in and sack the place looking for needles, but when a neighbor says there are criminals inside actively stealing the police aren’t allowed to enter due to ownership rights and due process.

People responsible for protecting us and catching criminals are afraid that someone will use the system against them as they have many times in the past.  Upset citizens can easily complain to a government agency about some police action and the police involved have to suffer through hours and hours of scrutiny just to be proven innocent.  While I appreciate checks and balances, various agencies can be manipulated by vindictive people into personal tools for harassment.  I pay taxes to make it possible, but I have no control over what actually takes place.  Meanwhile, legitimate tasks are neglected because individuals may be held accountable for a lack of process whether they are succeeding at their office’s goals or not.  I think that these two experiences have very much in common.  We tie the hands of those who are on the scene, yet empower those with petty grievances.  The system will someday collapse under the weight of rules for every contingency.  The human spirit of rationality will suffer until it does.  During this time, we have to put up with it as best we can.  Fin.

Put adults in charge of themselves

Why do I feel like my life is being dictated by powers beyond my control?  What power structure is this that has me feeling helpless, like one of the children in a 2nd grade class I am teaching?  Is there no way for a man to control his environment?  Why must I go against the grain to live a righteous life?  How can I compete with the self destructive capitalist society as it works so hard to extract money from me?

The conversation of freedom vs organization was very well discussed in Bertrand Russell's book by that name.  He looks back on the revolutionary times of Europe's conflicting factions and feudal development.  What emerges is a clear picture that organization beats down freedom until it eats itself.  At some point, the organizing control mechanism overreaches and the people can take it no longer.  They rise up en mass to destroy the organizing component, but is organization really gone?  Of course not.  The farmers still organize with the consumers to provide food.  Communities still organize to educate children.  Doctors and nurses still organize to help sick people.

What fears prevent people from standing up to the organizing system earlier?  One reason is that the system has slowly found it's weaknesses and put up blockades (literally) in order to restrict citizen's options for dissent.  Fear of anarchy dampens the spirit of many dissenters.  Anarchy is a confusing term for many people, but it makes sense from a libertarian perspective.  How will our food be delivered ?  How will our homes be heated?  The definition of anarchy as portrayed by the controlling system is one in which everything just goes to hell.

By it's original definition, anarchy is not uncontrolled chaos, but an egalitarian principle that individual adults should be able to handle their own business.  What is the value of a homogenizing federal government the purpose of which is to control the population for the benefit of itself and a small group of super rich families?  It certainly can be a powerful collective.  Unfortunately, it is one that can be overtaken by a small group of rich families for their own purpose.  In an anarchist society, each individual is responsible for their own welfare to a large degree.  There is no huge power system open for abuse by anyone smart enough, wealthy enough, and determined enough to take the wheel.

By nature, anarchy evolves from the individual model into a more controlled structure. Eventually, as it develops more and more controls, it becomes authoritarian.  We have gone from anarchy to authoritarian in America.  Now we must wait for it to eat itself so we can clean up the mess and start the cycle again.

Hillbilly done died

This blog is a tribute to Joe Baegent.  He is dead now, as we all shall be some day sooner than we think.  Joe was a man I never met who lived in Southern Illinois for a stretch.  There is the beginning of my connection with him, but it is the most superficial.  My real connection with Joe stems from my working class parents and their desire for me to be something other than working class.  They wanted me to be educated and cultured. 

Here is where Joe and I truly come together in spirit.  I discovered in my old age that I like working class people a hell of a lot more than those stuffy, uppity bastards who think their shit don't stink.  Don't get me wrong, I like operas and classical music and fine arts and fine cuisine, but to sit around a bunch of stuffed shirts faking my way through life is not my idea of a good time. Not only that, but Joe couldn't help from dwelling on the plight of his people.  Like Joe, I can't let go of the fact that people are being squeezed like turnips down to the last drop of juice left in em.

I'd rather stand around a bunch of grubby garbage men talking about how the government is screwing us around.  If you don't know, you may be surprised at how intelligent and insightful a garbage man can be.  They smell bad and look scary as an old goat, but they do what it takes to feed the family.  They also listen and learn.  They hear of new laws and contemplate their purpose.  They see by people's garbage what kind of people there are out there.  They see rich people's and poor people's garbage.  They know there are rich people who are scum and poor people who are beautiful.  You can see from a pile of garbage what a family eats, if they care about recycling, if they buy a bunch of crap they don't need, if they are filthy or clean, and even whether you would be good friends. 

The people Joe lived with and knew in Southern Illinois were hard working poor folk.  He was raised by poor folk, lived with poor folk, and heard a lot of ignorance and bigotry throughout his life.  But Joe was not destined to remain poor himself, though he never had money.  Joe became rich in other ways.  Ways that probably confused the people who knew him early on.  He begin to sift through the bigotry and ignorance to find the love, fear, and wisdom hidden beneath it.

He became a hillbilly prophet.  By prophet, I mean someone who speaks the truth for what it is whether it sounds nice or not.  Joe became educated and cultured without seeming educated and cultured.  He would write his political commentary with a few ain'ts and a few cusswords and it would sound like any redneck sharing his thoughts.  But Joe's thoughts were profoundly thought out and dead on in the truth ringing out from them.  At least, in my mind they were.  From my own experience and observations, not from what some highly organized political party fed me for breakfast my whole life.

He saw the plight of poor people and the fight of the rich against them.  He saw the screw being tightened and the rug pulled out from under.  He heard the wisdom of the masses who know what is going on, but are helpless to do anything about it.  The worst part is that a whole assload of us know what is going on, but damn near nobody knows how to change it.  You try to get a politician to help and they will pass a new law that will cost you money within a month. 

People are scared that if they try to change the system that they will be crushed by it.  And they are right.  Which is why we need to organize together to fight injustice.  The laws of the land hold society together by promising a fair shake if you are done wrong.  Right now, it seems like the bankers are getting over while the rest of us go under.  Accountability and transparency can save our system, but if some heads don't roll, shit is gonna keep hitting the fan and rolling downhill.  If only people could get out and see the reality instead of counting on the news, they might get pissed enough.  As it stands, those crushed disappear from the text books and get shut out of the news.  Keep listening and sharing wisdom.  Keep looking for ways to make a difference.  Get ready for a bumpy ride, cause it'll get worse before it gets better.

rLOVEution adolexcence

The laws of the land
you must understand,
their reason, function, and case.
Or else you should break them,
to see why they make them
and save the human race.