ASHBUSTERS For Life

It seems that from the moment one is born they are running a gauntlet in which nearly everything is beating upon the body, trying to break the body with cancer. Alcohol causes cancer, radon, automobile exhaust, the sun, viruses, sugar and coffee; but it is tobacco smoke which many fear the most even though a minority of people are exposed to it, and when they are it is only temporary in duration.

There are many drugs and stimulants, but tobacco is the only one that produces paranoia, fear, segregation, sickness,violence and hatred in those who don't use it. If one has ever known a drug addict they will recall their unstable behavior, or perhaps, they can recall the feeling themselves from past drug use. Or perhaps, one has known a schizophrenic who believes some entity is in a conspiracy against them and that they are in danger everywhere they go.

Tobacco smoke may or may not cause cancer, but will banning it really protect us from cancer's conspiracy against the human race? If or when tobacco smoke is made illegal what will we blame cancer on? Will we still blame it on smoker's who somehow transferred it like a flu virus across the generations? Will we have to ban our ancestors? No, we'll find a new scapegoat within our herd. It's not tobacco smoke we are afraid of, but our own self and our naked vulnerability in a harsh world. It is too difficult to come to grips with the fact that we don't live in Eden and that we can't get back in no matter how many of our fellow sheep we sacrifice upon the alter.

Perhaps, another purpose of the 1st Amendment to the United States Constitution is to protect the minority from the desires of the majority, from being made into atonement for sin (incidentally, there is no constitutional right in place that protects Americans from the Grim Reaper). Hitler, with the very compliant and willing help of his country chose to sacrifice the Jews, smokers and others upon his filthy alter. The high priests of the Superstitious Science of Fear told the masses that their economic and health problems would be cleansed of the impurity, curse and cancer if enough innocents were offered up to the Aryan gods. Why is it so often the case that the prophets of of Utopia and Freedom From Death always end up being murderers?

Thank goodness there were a few people left who understood the meaning of sacrifice and willingly gave their lives to fight for the freedom of the innocents being incinerated by the paranoid schizoids of satan. We are not to sacrifice others to make our own life better, but rather to sacrifice our own life for the ideals we hold dear and for those we love. It is hate, bitterness, and jealousy that are the cancers, not smokers, chubby people, and meat-eaters.

Motive For Metaphor

"You like it under the trees in autumn,
Because everything is half dead.
The wind moves like a cripple among the leaves
And repeats words without meaning...."(The Motive For Metaphor, Wallace Stevens)

In my opinion, there are two motives for metaphor. One reason is to imbue a taste of the aesthetic sublime into one's art in order to elevate another's awareness of sense, of how something felt (be it horrid or wonderful), and to enrich meaning beyond the ordinary of realism.

But the other motive for metaphor is as highly important, for it serves its purpose during times of repression and regression. When dictators, despots, and social movements control even the air one breathes; it is metaphor that serves as a kind of secret code or underground for the few who are able to understand. This is why certain types of art and creativity are feared by repressive governments. They are always afraid of the hidden message within the art and of how it may encourage and inspire its audience.

Most choose not to see the metaphor, but those who do, live in an even more real world. A world more harsh, more beautiful, more intricate and unexplainable to those who only see the surface.

Metaphor shows one that there is more than the rote "A B C of being" (Stevens). When we can see beyond those symbols we see that often words repeated by our society are like cripples "among the leaves," and "without meaning."

"....The ruddy temper, the hammer
Of red and blue, the hard sound -
Steel against intimation - the sharp flash,
The vital, arrogant, fatal, dominant X" (Motive For Metaphor)

image: David and Goliath, Caravaggio

Christian Temples Ban God's Smoke and Fat

If God were to show up in a cloud of smoke would we ban Him?

Who is this coming out of the
wilderness
Like pillars of smoke,
Perfumed with myrrh and
frankincense,
With all the merchant's
fragrant powders? (Song of Solomon 3:6)

I suspect we would be greatly afraid and would run for fear of our precious temple-bodies being made unholy by the smoke of the saints and of God billowing about. There is no safe amount of smoke, as they say.

Notice, too that not only is smoke being banned, but fats too. Hmm. Another enjoyable sin associated with God and smoke. Constantly, those Hebrew priests of the Scripture are offering up the fat upon a smoking altar. I wonder if this smoke and fat means God is an obese diabetic with lung cancer?

Is this why God didn't accept Cain's healthy serving of veggies? He really didn't feel like changing His ways and preferred Abel's smoking barbecue.

And this really bothered Cain. He couldn't quite figure out why his healthy produce wasn't relished by God who seemd to prefer Abel, the shepherding barbecue king. The science said this was wrong. So Cain "banned" Abel for harming God with dangerous fats, smoke, and carbon monoxide. This upset God because He wasn't particularly ready to give up His habits and only Abel knew how to make the secret BBQ sauce. He reprimanded Cain and forgave him for his mistake and sent him on his way with a protective mark (probably a smudge of Abel's BBQ sauce).

Water will have to be the next unhealthy item banned, because it too may remind us of God. It is in the works, controlling water and its use by the common people.

But it is okay to be a temple harlot as long as one is responsible and safe about it.

And as long as we keep the logs in our eyes we can point out everyone else's splinters. But the log will burn longer and hotter than the tiny splinter which can be blown out quickly. I'd rather have a splinter of imperfection than a log of piety constipating my system.

image: Rembrandt, The Prodigal Son Returns

Trijicon and Tefillin

Here we are in the modern age of science and technology displaying superstitious and ignorant fear over magic words.

I woke the other morning to the radio alarm telling of the fear caused upon US Airways Flight 3709 when a young man whipped out the word of God, strapped it on and began firing prayers into the air. Really, we need more body scanners to prevent tefillin terror. I laughed all day thinking about it.

And then, a few days ago ABC News broke the Trijicon Bible codes scare. Evidently, Trijicon, which produces the best gun sights in the world, has been "secretly" embedding metonyms which refer to New Testament Bible verses right next to the serial numbers. Trijicon is a contractor for the U.S. Military.

Now, perhaps, if these references were embedded in the bombs and bullets being used to kill those of non-Christian persuasion it would be offensive and hypocritical, but the metonym is on a gun sight. The inscriptions wouldn't even mean anything to an ignorant person. 2COR4:6 or JN8:12. But we have grown superstitious in our modern and advanced age.

"Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, said the sights endanger the troops" ("Marine Corps considers ending contract with Trijicon; Top U.S. military official defends vendor," Stephanie Gaskell, 19 Jan, 2010, NY Daily News).

"We should be aware of ignorance just as much as we should be aware of terrorism" (Benjamin Blech qtd, in "Jewish Teen's Tefillin Diverts US Airways Flight 3709 From LaGuardia," Kathy Matheson, 21 Jan 2010, The Huffington Post).

Have no fear, Trijicon has conceded to discontinue the horrid practice of putting magic words on its sights and is sending out kits to remove the offensive sorcery. And the bomb-sniffing dogs and federal agents found no danger in the boy's sacred scrolls, little boxes, or the leather straps used to bind the word of God to his head and hands.

Inscribing powerful words upon weapons is an age old practice. And it is an age old belief that the word is a weapon, a double-edged sword, a vibration of light invisible to most eyes.

And I wonder to myself, as I am prone, will those Trijicon sights be less reliable without the power of the word? Will they sight more innocents than enemies?

And I wonder how the Holy Word was able to divert a plane and create so much fear? And I wonder what would have happened if the young man had not had his tefillin? Why were the crew and passengers so on edge? What was in the air? Fear caused by expansive ignorance?

Ignorance is not bliss anymore. It's hell.

image: Amelia Earhart

Is The Glass Half Full or Half Empty?

The past week I have been reading Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago, Stacy Schiff's Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), and Sylvia Nasar's A Beautiful Mind. I have not finished Solzhenitsyn. I was overwhelmed by the interrogation techniques used by the Russians due to the fact that many of these are being used by the local law enforcement upon my fellows. Sometimes, the truth is too dark and breathtaking when it removes the shiny curtain of imagined freedom to reveal the very evil one thinks cannot possibly exist in their own community.

Interestingly, these three books go together quite well and I cannot help but think that it was ordained by some greater will that they should have been brought together for my pleasure. Schiff's Vera shows us how to overcome evil, slipping through like water in the hand of Russian and German hatred; and live quietly, yet brightly in the persistent pursuit of one's love. If I could rename Schiff's Vera it would be And Then She Typed, Then She Transcribed, Then She Took Dictation, Then She Translated. Vera was not written how I would have written her, but it sure makes one think about typewriters, vehicles, and words, drive and fingers.

Nasar's biography of John Forbes Nash, Jr. tied the trio together nicely. Nash makes a perfect metaphor for our current society and how it has become sick with schizophrenia. Everything that Nash suffered as an individual schizophrenic describes modern culture, except there is no sanitarium for the masses, and there won't be a Nobel Prize.

And now, I'm looking into propaganda, which is fairly dry when one has learned most of this information from reading good literature. Great writers expose their readers to the world of lies, truth, and ways of thinking critically. A great reader doesn't always believe the narrator if they know what's good for them.

Here is a quote on how propagandists play with numbers:

"'2 out of 5 fatal automobile accidents was due to drinking. 33% of the drivers involved in fatal accidents had been drinking. 24% of the pedestrians involved in fatal accidents had been drinking. Therefore, alcohol intoxication is a major cause of automobile accidents and drunk driving must be dealt with harshly'

That logic sounds impressive, but it's completely wrong. Consider the reverse logic:

'3 out of 5 fatal automobile accidents did not involve drinking. 67% of the drivers involved in fatal accidents had not been drinking. And 76% of the pedestrians involved in accidents had not been drinking. Therefore, sobriety is undoubtedly the major cause of fatal automobile accidents, and sober driving must be outlawed immediately, and punished harshly'" ("Propaganda and Debating Techniques," A. Orange).

I don't know if we should be bandying those sober numbers about. A mother of a child who died at the hands of a sober driver may get ideas and form M.A.S.S. (Mothers Against Sober Sinners). We are at such a precarious point in our schizophrenic world that people would actually support banning sober drivers.

This is why we need to stop feeding our emotions and listening to those nasty adverts featuring the sobbing wife of a drunk husband who killed a father of a small and darling child with his car. It's pure emotion designed to pass a law which will eventually lead to another law and another until everyone is a criminal, and made to pay penance for farting and belching, or simply looking odd while driving.

I wish that those, especially the women, convicted of DUI and put through the illegal and humiliating treatment at the local gulag would put out an advert exposing the inhumane treatment they were subjected to.

Guilty of Living

"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted -- and you create a nation of law-breakers -- and then you cash in on guilt" (Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged)

During the 1930s and 1940s it was illegal for a person of Jewish descent to work or to be alive in Germany. And before this, it was illegal for Jews to work or live in Russia. And before that it was illegal for Catholics to participate in many aspects of life in England, such as politics or education. English Catholics paid higher taxes too for their "sin." And before that is was illegal in many places to be a Protestant in a Catholic country. And before that it was illegal to be a Jew or Christian in the Roman Empire.

And not so long ago it was illegal for a person with high melanin to eat, travel, live in many neighborhoods, own guns, or go to school in many areas of the United States of America. One religious leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is highly admired and celebrated for leading the battle to abolish the laws and sick mindset of those who fear those born with blessed bodies that produce more melanin.

It was believed, and still is by many highly "educated" people with academic degrees, that certain groups of people were a danger to society and would contaminate the health of all. These specially designated and despised groups were often forcefully sterilized for being poor, sickly, or unwed.

These laws of the past which made innocent people into guilty criminals to be hunted down and eradicated were not correct then, nor are they ever. Those who broke the law, those who ignored these heinous laws are heroes.

Will you break the law to defend the dignity of life?

image: Carrie Buck (Paul B. Popenoe, "The Progress of Eugenic Sterilization," Journal of Heredity,25:1 (1934), 23). In the 1924 case of Buck v. Bell the U.S. Supreme Court agreed that it was constitutionally and scientifically correct for the state of Virginia to forcefully sterilize those it hated, including three generations of Buck women.

Carrie's mother, Emma, was sterilized for the crime of being poor and abandoned by the father of her children. Carrie was placed in foster care, and raped at age 17 by the nephew of her foster parents, thus becoming pregnant. Accused of the crime of being a seductive and feeble-minded female it was decided that upon the birth of her child she be sterilized to protect society from the danger she posed to the health and safety of others.

The case of Buck v. Bell, which established the precedence of science's justness and love of life, helped to enforce sterilizations all across the U.S., and gave the the Nazis of Germany a foundation upon which to base their own laws. Buck v. Bell still stands and has NEVER been overturned, never been declared unconstitutional or unlawful by the lawmakers, BUT because it is considered illegal in the hearts and minds of the citizens it has not been observed.

Carrie Buck's daughter, Vivian, was adopted by Carrie's former foster parents and also sterilized. Vivian died at the age of eight. Carrie lived on and married. There was nothing feeble-minded about her. She was the victim of the feeble-minded and feeble-hearted.

At Least We'll Be Elegantly Destitute

"[T]he spirits of Americans are hitting record lows. People are becoming desperate to find something--anything--that will make them feel better, to do something to pick themselves up........We forecast that something will be 'Elegance' in its many manifestations. The trend will begin with fashion............a move toward quality and individuality--and will spread through all the creative arts, as the need for beauty trumps the thrill of the thuggish. A strong, do-it-yourself aspect will make up for reduced discretionary income, as personal effort provides the means for affordable sophistication" (Gerald Celente, "Breaking Point: Top Trends 2010").

I'm forecasting that big, bulky, top heavy and scruffy scarves will give way to trim and neat neck gear of finer fabrics.

Moccasins and ballet flats will give way to the penny loafer, and middle-aged men in the entertainment industry will stop with that affected froufy frousle-tousle hair do.

Plaid is in and will continue for several years because it is colorful in a drab world, classic, versatile, individual, and unpretentious. Some may choose plaid for its counterculture connotations and others may choose it for the association with that rebel William Wallace.

Will women return to skirts as every day wear, and men to ties? No. Women will not give up the pants, and men will not don the tie as an every day piece of clothing. It won't happen. Carhartt will happen.

And as a warning, even in the midst of the revival of elegance, poshlost will still thrive, and as usual, those who believe they are being elegant will only exhibit poshlost at its pinnacle. It may take a full body scan to expose who is elegant and who is carrying the element of poshlost. Of course, the truly elegant will not submit to a full body scan.

Poshlost:(Russian) vulgarity, triviality, banality, promiscuity, etc. "[T]he falsely important, the falsely beautiful, the falsely clever..." (Vladimir Nabokov). "[O]ver concern with class or race, and the journalistic generalities we all know" (Nabokov). "[C]omplacent mediocrity and moral degeneration" (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn).

"Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" (Bogart to Rains, Casablanca)