Musical Chairs: How Music Organizes, Evokes, and Intoxicates

Have you ever noticed the tendency to put on the music while cleaning and organizing?

I've been researching habits, addiction, dependency, and neurotransmitters; and it occurred to me as I delved into these things that music is like a substance that we ingest.

When we get a new CD we are excited by it for awhile, playing it over and over, enjoying the discovery and the new sounds, but after a time, we stop listening to it as often or enjoying it as much. We then, move on to new music and begin the experience of pleasure and discovery all over again. This is tolerance in the world of drugs, especially painkillers.

When a person builds up a tolerance to a dose of painkillers, they need a higher dose or new drug in order to achieve the same feeling of freedom from pain.

But why do we listen to music while organizing around the house and elsewhere? Because it's a "drug," like nearly everything else in our life. Drugs and other substances open and close doors in our brain, helping us to function better--or worse, depending on what it is and who we are.

The rhythm of music is a substance that we ingest through our ears. The rhythm causes our brain to go into a straightening up mode, to organize things in the rooms. Rhythm and Melody, that skipping lady of the tingling, tripping toes, unlocks the doors to let that delightful child, Joy run up and down the halls to show us the simple pleasures at her feast table.

Joy is the child that runs up and down relaxing the tension in the springs. She peeks out when we see beautiful art, music, when we smell the lilacs, or coffee. She is springtime. Joy is that one who makes us cry when we're happy, when our emotions have been evoked. And because of her special light touch, yet powerful emotional powers she causes us to remember. Joy increases our short term and long term memories, embedding them within those rooms of our mind.

When Joy is locked up, kept prisoner in a dark room, there is a gloomy mood in the house, the pleasure of eating is disrupted causing one to eat too much or too little, there is nothing worth remembering or learning. If Joy is not let loose the owner of the house may sink into a dark place, overcome by depression, low self esteem, and may strike out against their joyless life with aggression.

Even plants grow better when music is played to them. Perhaps, that saying about plants growing better if we talk to them is true.

And if Music is an ingested substance that causes the release of different neurotransmitters, is it any different than a prescription pill, or street drug? Is this why we have music "wars," because unconsciously we know this?

Is this why different groups of people imbibe in different strains of music? There's gospel, classical, soul, bluegrass, rock, hip hop, the blues, and countless other strains of the plant. Certain strains are considered "hardcore" corruptions of music, dangerous hybrids laced with toxic substances, which cause the user to behave destructively.

Then, there is the patented laboratory musical formula produced en masse for the majority of users. This is the polished, "clean" stuff that we rave about, but only releases Joy in small doses. Then, there is the patented formula of rap, a strange concoction that has been altered from its roots, and sold to the mass produced white kids of suburbia.

We all have our favorite strains of the substance. And it may be ignorance of its purpose and wreckless use that harms its purpose of releasing that joyful tingle. All drugs can be abused. Are we binge drinking music, or enjoying it and getting some pleasure or release of tension from it?

Albigence Waldo, in his Rustick way, sums up perfectly how music unlocks Joy and lets her do her job:

Valley Forge, 23 December 1777 - "This evening an excellent Player on the Violin in that soft kind of Musick, which is so finely adapted to stirr up the tender Passions, while he was playing in the next Tent to mine, these kind of soft Airs it immediately called up in remembrance all the endearing expressions, the Tender Sentiments.... and filled me these tender emotions, and Agreeable Reflections, which cannot be described, and which in spite of my Philosophy forced out the sympathetic tear. I wish'd to have the Musick Cease, and yet dreaded its ceasing, least I should loose sight of these dear Ideas, which gave me pain and pleasure at the same instant" (emphasis mine).

What Albigence describes is the ingesting of music and the freeing of Joy to do her job. This is what C.S. Lewis calls Sehnsucht.

image: Lena Horne and Duke Ellington

Boom Town Detroit, America

There are hours and hours of footage on display at YouTube detailing the decay of Detroit. One of the more interesting aspects of them is the music, which is used to say what cannot be conveyed in words or commentary. The commentary of countless individuals tells us what is wrong--on the surface, but does not get to the heart of the problem the way the music does. The music gets deeper and shows us that the decay of Detroit is one of the soul.

The musical choices placed along with the movies take us to a dark and sad place of mourning, a place so despairing that it seems impossible to recover from, as if a heavy blanket of chains pulls the spirit downward into a chasm of nothingness where the sun and warmth cannot reach. Detroit is a haunted place, a dark lady wandering along passages of broken glass and death that does not come. She has been desecrated, used up, and left to lay alone in the remains of a glamorous party, kissed and loved by all, then left alone in her drunkenness, her clothes torn, her dignity spread around by the partiers, the broken glass thrown upon her and a pile of cash showered upon her as everyone walks past, turning the lights out, not caring to lift her out and drive her home.

She had no home. Her home was in the bed of countless men who adorned themselves with her as an ornament, then used her for the night, after dancing with her, feeding her, drugging her, and giving her money for fine clothes.

How do we lift this lost lady from the rubble?

Daily, Detroit burns, the carcass and empty windows stare out as we gaze upon her magnificent ruins which, even though ruins are fantastic in their own right. Nothing Detroit does is small. Even her death is dramatic, drawing the attention of a nation, transfixing us in her grip as we watch her gasping her last breathes.

Detroit could rise, although a humbled and quieter woman, if the doctors would stop leaching her even as she dies, if they would loose her from their vampirism. She does not want money, she wants a Samaritan to stop and help her. No longer does she want the wealthy and popular man, but the gentle and poor outcast with a heart and strength to lift her to the inn.

And this disease that Detroit has is slowly spreading across the body of America, but because no other city is as grand, the death is less noticeable. This disease began hundreds of years ago in the mountains and streams when gold, silver, and copper were discovered.

It's called Gold Fever. Creek beds are dredged for it, hillsides razed, and entire neighborhoods removed leaving giant toxic lakes in their wake.

In the early days of the boom town, the recovery was natural, the scars less obvious. The reason for this was that the majority of those who arrived in boom towns were not there for gold, but to serve the mining industry with real commodities until the operation ran out. The boom town was known from the beginning as a temporary residence which would be replaced by permanent and quieter settlements founded upon real human industry and value, especially agriculture.

The modern boom towns founded upon copper and steel grew larger and more vibrant than the old boom towns of the wild west. But these modern boom towns desecrated the very people who lived in them. Butte, MT forced the majority of its residents out in order to tear apart the hill that once lit up the night with life and architecture. Rather than wealth and life, the hill was turned into a poison pit, the largest toxic lake on the continent. Where is the value? Is it people and homes or is it in metals?

Go to a steel mill town, such as Duluth along Lake Superior and it resembles Detroit with the empty buildings, the open fields, the company town with empty churches, the streets pitted, the tracks turning wild. There is the tourist area along Park Point, but it serves epicures and souvenir collectors, rather than any lasting or useful commodity.

Detroit was a modern boom town founded upon quick money, fast living, metals and petroleum. The citizens fell for the illusion, rather than following the example of slower and independent industry. The new boom towns do not settle the land or call people out to farm and set up shop around them. When the operators have cleaned out the soil and souls, they leave for another place to use up. Now, they're in China and poor countries building a new set of boom towns. They don't care how many people they displace, poison, or leave wretched and rotting. People have not value to these boom town operators.

The modern world seems unable to see the cycle of the boom town. The residents linger and wonder what happened. Rather than creating real industry, smaller, and less glamorous, they wait for the gold to rain down from the sky in the form of government subsidies. And the money rains down, while at the same time the taxes rise. And again the boom town is kept alive long enough to strip mine the people of everything they have, and more than they have. This time it's the corrupt elected officials and the gangs doing the mining.

In the old days, the corrupt officials and gangs were hunted down by citizen vigilante groups who valued human life more than gold. But now, it is a crime for a law loving person to defend himself, and he is told to submit himself, to allow the corruption to ravage him. And where the corruption flourishes, a wonderful new mining operation, called prison, springs up. America has one of the largest, if not the largest prison industry in the world. If memory serves correctly, America imprisons more people per capita than Russia or China.

And now, the feeding frenzy upon a paralyzed country is in full force. America, lays like a patient upon the operating table. She has been used, her education has been a false one that wastes young adult's lives creating a lie called teenage rebellion, an unnatural right of passage that only began displaying itself when young adults were told they had to remain children until they turned 18.

America still bases her wealth upon metals because so much of her technology is dependent upon the rare metals that only China is willing to extract for the rest of the world's appetites. A hybrid auto actually destroys the planet because of the slave labor it required to loot the land. And a solar cell uses these rare China metals which will one day run out when the boom is over.

There are only a few constant and replenishable commodities. The most important is human industriousness and creativity which is unleashed when a person is free from government, religious tithes, and corporate monopoly. When a people are free to travel unchecked, choose their educational strategy, and work for them self without strip mine taxes they flourish and benefit all around them. The land, if owned by private citizens, is the pride and wealth of nations. Combined with man, the land is a perfect marriage. It is mankind that gives anything its value, not the things that give mankind value.

The reason Detroit crumbles in wretchedness is that its soul, the humans who live within it are wretched. They were not taught that they are valuable and that they have the power of the golden touch, that it was not the auto industry that made them rich, but they who made the auto industry golden, they who were the mine stripped bare by the Boom town operators. Detroit has been with held the knowledge of its dignity and that mankind is the only mine that can and does replenish itself.

Detroit, and all of America should remember that throwing money upon a dead body cannot resurrect it, and that it is immoral to burden a robbed person with higher and higher taxes. It is immoral to take from one to give to another. This is a great lie that fills the pockets of corruption.

When will America see that it is being strip mined and that now the operation is being escalated at a quickened and desperate pace which if not halted will leave it nothing but burned out buildings and toxic lakes? We don't need plastic surgery, or false fronts erected to create happy illusions for us to gaze upon in self-satisfied arrogance. We need to learn that even in a rougher and less perfect state we have more value than any bag of gold, that it is mercy and not sacrifice that makes the world better and eases the pain and hardship. Those suffering in the world don't need us to sacrifice our life and money for them, they need us to be strong and whole enough to extend mercy.

Is your government working for you or are you working for it?

"....a moderate Tax upon any People, both by keeping them constantly employed [enslaved], by rendering them therefore more attached to those who procure them Employment [forced to work for another in order to pay taxes, since personal employment although more satisfying and productive is also irregular at times due to the trial and error of it], and by inducing a more vigorous Spirit of Industry [enslavement], really profited a Country at large, tended to make them a quiet & happy [enslaved, worn out, despairing], and effected that Subordination & Distinction of Ranks in Society[taxes create class distinctions, disparity, poverty], which is so wanted here" (Ambrose Serle, secretary to General William Howe, Philadelphia, 9 Mar. 1778).

Why We Fight

I have been reading The American Revolution, Writings from the War of Independence, selected by John Rhodehamel, part of Penguin Putnam's Library of America collection.

The selections alternate between British and American writings by various authors. Many of the writings are journal entries and record the constant ups and downs of those for and against independence. After hundreds of pages of battle, starving, travel, and exposure to the elements; we suddenly come upon Sarah Wister, a very young woman living at Gwynedd, Pennsylvania (not far from Valley Forge), excited that her home is to quarter General Smallwood of the Contintental Army.

Sarah Wister's little heart goes pit a pat with all of the brave young company filling her home, and she falls in love with a handsome young Major Stodard of Maryland, who "has the softest voice never pronounces the R at all." As she closes her diary the first night of blushing excitement she says, "adieu I am going to my chamber to dream I suppose of bayonets and swords, sashes, guns, and epaulets."

And Major Stodard, his weary soul filled with hospitality, food, peace, and beauty goes to sleep to dream of pretty Sarah Wister who represents life, liberty, and happiness. She put on her best dress for this young soldier, and he put up his best fight for her.

And not far from Sarah Wister, is Albigence Waldo a surgeon with the Continental Army, who is ill, and homesick for his wife and children in Connecticut, who write to him that they have no money or food, and wish he would come home to take care of them. Albigence has no money, he eats a paste of water and flour, and breathes the smoke of the campfires every day while in Winter Quarters at Valley Forge. He writes on Christmas Day, 1777:

"We avoid Piddling Pills, Powders, Bolus's Linctus's Cordials and all such insignificant matters whose Powers are Only render'd important by causing the Patient to vomit up his money instead of his disease."

But a couple days earlier, December 23, he records, "This evening an excellent Player on the Violin in that soft kind of Musick, which is so finely adapted to stirr up the tender Passions, while he was playing in the next Tent to mine, these kind of soft Airs it immediately called up remembrance of all the endearing expressions, the Tender Sentiments....

"....and filled me with these tender emotions, and Agreeable Reflections, which cannot be described, and which in spite of my Philosophy forced out the sympathetic tear. I wish'd to have the Musick Cease, and yet dreaded its ceasing, least I should loose sight of these dear Ideas, which gave me pain and pleasure at the same instant."

This is why beauty and art cannot be neglected, ever. They are not mere entertainments and diversions, but lifters of the soul, healers, keys that open doors of sweet remembrance. Although it may be against the "philosophy" of many brave and war-torn souls, there are acceptable and quiet moments when a cleansing is required so that peace can be regained, and morning made to shine sweeter. How many dirty, sick, and starving soldiers were replenished and washed with memory of home, love, and warm tables by that unnamed violinist? How many remembered what it felt like to be human, and that this is why we fight--for our natural desire to live as humans, not drudges?

"The Man who has seen misery knows best how to enjoy good" (Albigence Waldo, Valley Forge, Dec. 1777).

image: Renior, Woman Playing Guitar

Another Version of Martin Niemoller

Martin Niemoller, a Christian pastor, and early supporter of the Nazi party is famously quoted for his "When they came for the Jews" speech.

Not long after the Nazis came to power, Niemoller realized the horrible truth of what he had once supported and began to speak out, but it was too late, and there was no one to defend him when he was sent to the concentration camps.

There are many variations of Niemoller's famous words. Here is mine:

When they came for the weak,
I remained silent;
I wasn't weak.

When they came for the tobacco user,
I remained silent;
I didn't use tobacco.

When they came for the gun owner,
I remained silent;
I didn't own a gun.

When they came for the fat people,
I remained silent;
I wasn't fat.

When they came for the Toyota company,
I remained silent;
What right did Toyota have to compete with Government Motors?

When they watched children undressing via school-issue computers,
I remained silent;
It wasn't my child.

When they taxed my jobless neighbors out of their homes,
I remained silent;
I didn't like them anyway.

When they came for the sinners,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a sinner.

When they came for me,
There remained no voice to speak.

image: Slave Woman

America's Rebellion Against The Corporation: Independence From Dependence.

"....America has grown rich at the Expence, & not to the Advantage of G. Britain; that the northern Americans in particular are rather Rivals in our Trade than Merchants in it, and if a considerable Reduction take Place in the Strength & opulence of America, it will render her the longer dependent upon G. Britain. The Americans have quarelled with the old System, while they grew rich & powerful under it as to bid us Defiance; for which Reason we may justly quarel with it too, and insist upon another, which will bring them, & keep them when brought, into a closer Union & Dependence with the Parent State" (Ambrose Serle, secretary to British General William Howe, New York, 2 Sep. 1776).

Never in the Bard's education was he taught that the American Revolution, or more correctly The War for Independence, was in fact a battle against monopoly interests. Nor was he taught that it was a civil war.

The Bard was taught that the American Revolution was about Independence from British rule. He never learned that the Colonists loved Britain and considered themselves loyal British subjects. He never learned that the American colonists often tried to abolish slavery, but that the mother country, Britain, would rather defend the monetary interests of the traders and merchants than the value of human life.

A great many of the colonist slave owners lamented that they had not chosen to own slaves, but had inherited them from preceding generations, and because of British law they could not free them. They were stuck between a rock and a hard place; fighting against enslavement to monopoly interests while owning slaves. Several colonist slave owners hoped that the American War for Independence would change this situation and allow for them to free their slaves into a land safe for them to prosper without fear of being kidnapped and sent off to British plantations in the West Indies.

If the American Colonists had been allowed freedom from monopoly interests there would have been no slavery, or very little of it, at the time of the Revolutionary War for Independence, and probably none after the Constitutional Convention. There may not have been an American Civil War in the 1860s. When people are left alone, they more often do what is right, rather than what is wrong. Freedom is not an escape from danger, but allowance to face it as a single individual.

And the Bard wonders to himself, is there any war that is not about monopoly interests? Are many of the wars fought actually several monopolies vying for control of monetary interests? Is there ever a just war?

The only just war the Bard knows of at this time with his limited knowledge is the American War for Independence. This was a war of many individuals against the large monopoly, more than against Britain. This was a war for the rights of people to compete in every way possible. The Revolutionaries believed in competition of ideas, religion, speech, trade, time, and that it was the right of each person to defend these rights.

"They will not fight at any Rate, unless they are sure of Retreat. Their army is the strangest that ever was collected: Old men of 60, Boys of 14, and Blacks of all ages, and ragged for the most part, compose the motley Crew, who are to give the Law to G. Britain and tyrannize over His Majesty's Subjects in America" (Ambrose Serle, New York, 2 Sep. 1776).

How is an army of ragged old men and young boys a tyranny? Because they dare stand against enslavement and submission to unnatural laws? Isn't it interesting that old men and young boys evoked such a threat to supposedly superior powers? These "tyrants" were individual citizens, not an army in the general sense, not a corporation.

"Her [Great Britain] Fondness for Conquest as a Warlike Nation, her Lust of Dominion as an Ambitious one, and her Thirst for a gainful Monopoly as a Commercial one, (none of them legitimate Causes of War) will all join to hide from her Eyes every view of her true Interests; and continually goad her in these ruinous distant Expeditions, so destructive both of Lives and Treasure, that must prove as pernicious to her in the End as the Croisades formerly were to most of the Nations of Europe....

"....your Lordship makes it painful to me to see you engag'd in conducting a War, the great Ground of which as expressed in your Letter, is, 'the necessity of preventing the American Trade from passing into foreign Channels.' To me it seems that neither the obtaining or retaining of any Trade, how valuable soever, is an Object for which Men may justly Spill each others Blood; and that the true and sure means of extending and securing Commerce is the goodness and cheapness of Commodities; and that the profits of no Trade can ever be equal to the Expence of compelling it, and of holding it, by Fleets and Armies" (Benjamin Franklin to Lord Howe, 20 July 1776, emphasis added).

And so, we must stand back and ask ourselves have we been deceived by our modern expeditions and wars? Is it possible, that we are not at war in distant countries for righteous reasons, but for reasons of corporate interest?

Have we been made dependant upon the corporate monopolies and upon the Government which acts upon their behest? Is it possible that most laws are not there to protect us but to protect a giant corporation's interests? Are we still independent citizens?

It cannot be denied that there are radical Islamic factions that have endangered lives across the world, but are they really Islamic, or are they something else hiding under the robes and headdress of religion? If we lift the head dress and look a little closer we see something else, the religion of greed.

Look, at what we're fighting. Are we fighting against ragged old men and young boys? I hope not.

Look at the Taliban. Are they really any different than our own governments? They require large taxes and protection fees from the villages. They control traffic, monitor all aspects of life. They prevent competition. And they profit from the West's war, rather than being harmed by it. Every contract for construction also includes a hefty fee and agreements with the Taliban. The Western world knows this, but won't speak of it.

The Taliban not only makes giant sums of money from the Western world in all kinds of hidden fees, but makes agreements to allow the projects, such as bridges to be finished so that the engineering firms will be paid by western governments who know that the project will be destroyed by the Taliban not long after completion. The Taliban doesn't care about the welfare of the citizens, which should lead us to question if the Taliban are citizens themselves or a front group (much like TobaccoFree and Co.)for an unknown corporate monopoly.

What gives the Western world the right to fight against the Taliban on moral or just grounds, or to call them terrorists when the Western world practices the same atrocities upon its own populations?

Rather than fighting the corporate Taliban, we should send in the Samuel Adams and the George Washingtons to go in and bolster the morale and courage of the individual citizen. We should empower the citizens in every way possible so that they know who they are and of their self-worth, not as radicals or members of mobs, but as intelligent and industrious people endowed with the right to life, liberty, and property. Then, let those old men and their grandsons go out and get the job done of cleaning out those radical front groups for foreign corporations.

Set up the Committees of Correspondence between the villages, meet under the Liberty Trees, and find that 25% of the population willing to defend life for everyone else. Don't offer to pay the corporate Taliban off, force them out. And the same needs to be done around the world. It can be done. It has been done, although very rarely.

"[I] always took them for a people, whose very horrid figure had a greater effect on their enemy than any courage they possessed, as their cruel turn often assured me they could not be brave, Humanity & pity for misfortunes of the wretched, being invariably the constant companions of true courage; theirs is savage and will never steadily look on danger" (William Digby, British, observations of the Native Indians who fought alongside the British troops, 1777).

Digby's comments on the Native Indians during the American Revolution could now be used to apply to a great number of modern savages, who wear intimidating costumes, and perform cruel acts upon innocent people.

Digby was on the wrong side of the War for Independence against State enforced Monopoly, but his comment is one that ought to encourage each of us as it reminds us of what true courage and bravery look like. It looks like me and it looks like you. It looks like old men and young boys, the light of life flaming in their eyes.

image:Gustave Dore, Death of Samson

Incendiary of One

"How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!" (Samuel Adams, letter to John Pitts, 21 Jan 1776)

"It does not require a majority to prevail...but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen to set brush fires in people's minds" (Samuel Adams)note-I could not source this, and due to its tone am a bit doubtful that it originates from Adams.

One is not the loneliest number. The larger the number the higher the loneliness rating. Were it not for all of the other numbers, One would not be lonely. One does not arrest himself, and force himself to work in a gulag, nor does One dictate to a nation. It takes a large number of fractions combined to make a unity of so-called "Ones" to make the One feel lonely.

But One may be the largest, most intimidating and powerful number. One is the number that frightens the other numbers who believe in a fractional/decimal system in which no single individual is able to function without the crutch of others. These little fractions are afraid of the Whole Ones who have no regard for shattered parts which must be glued together to look like anything, and even then, the vessel of parts is leaky and dysfunctional, only good for looking at--from a blurry distance.

One of the United States of America's mottoes is E pluribus unum, "out of many, one." This simple little phrase is actually very tricky and could be read any which way. It's like one of those drawings that looks like an old hag one way, and a young beauty turned the other way.

Traditionally, E pluribus unum is understood to mean that out of many people one nation is made. This seems a good and true meaning. But to the Fractions, this means that no one is complete until they are part of a greater crowd.

This Bard would like to add a bit of his own meaning to the phrase E pluribus unum. The Bard believes that One is complete in itself and that each One of us is a wonderful little universe walking around amongst other little universes. This Bard has often looked upon genealogy charts and marvelled upon the hundreds of people it took to get to the point that made him. The Bard is a virtual nation of saints, sinners, ethnicities, explorers, colonists, criminals, vagrants, preachers, soldiers, and dreamers. Out of these many and diverse people One person was made. The Bard is complete and has his own riot swimming around in every cell of his body.

If these many contributors can get along within the internal parts of one body, why can we not get along with the many on the external parts of the body? Why do we believe that everything has to be material and external to make us complete when each of us is already complete?

One is not the loneliest number. It is when One is beaten, ignored, and derided by the Fractions that One is lonely. The loneliness comes not from being One, but from being surrounded by so many others and not one, not a single one will act as One and extend a hand of love or a voice of support.

A single One can affect more good than one crowd. It is the One who sits next to the sick, the one who creates the masterpiece, one that defends the defenseless against the crowd of combined fractions.

One can also affect great evil, but only if the fractions believe they are not whole without following the evil one. It takes a crowd of fractions to follow and enact evil. No dictator, king, czar, or plantation owner has any power unless a large group of people who believe the lie of incompleteness submit to degradation, and hatred caused by fear.

It only takes one domino to topple the other dominoes, one spark to set a forest on fire, and one chromosome to alter a life's expression, and one empty cave to change time.

One rogue cancer cell uncaught by the immune system can wreak havoc on a body if unchecked, if the immune system is suppressed. And an immune system that is overly zealous, that acts as an angry mob is called an autoimmune disorder. There will always be small inflammations and offenses to the system, but when the system behaves as Nazi Socialists it is similar to an over active immune system. It would have been better for the body to have reacted less angrily and aggressively.

And it is not the cancer cell that is so dangerous, but the suppressed immune system that is too tired and blind to catch the problem before it spreads to other organs. Each of us has cancer cells in our body and every day, if our body is doing its job it quietly negates them. In a way, it is the helpless mass, the large numbers in the body that are to blame for the cancer's growth, rather than the little cancer itself. If each cell saw itself as whole and independently powerful, it would be able to confront the single cancer cell when it came across it as it wandered along its epic journey.

In a way, our modern society is only an external and material acting out of what happens to each of us as One person every day on an internal and unseen level. Our fear and hatred is much like an over active immune system that does not understand that negatives exist within the system, that inflammation occurs, but that in due time it will clear up with a more gentle and calm approach.

Our internal body and external life are a delicate balancing act which require much thought, consideration, love, and strength to keep from falling off the tightrope.

And Samuel Adams represents a whole One, a fighter cell that also bolsters and invigorates those around him, which is why I have included his quotes here. Were it not for him, I would never have delved into this subject. And I hope I've made him a little proud to know that his One voice has reached through the generations and encouraged this little One.

"It is not infrequent to hear men declaim loudly upon liberty, who, if we may judge by the whole tenor or their actions, mean nothing else by it but their own liberty--to oppress without control or the restraint of laws all who are poorer or weaker than themselves" (Samuel Adams, The Advertiser, 1748)

"Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. These are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature" (Samuel Adams, The Rights of the Colonists, 20 Nov 1772)

"Did the protection we received annul our rights as men, and lay us under an obligation of being miserable? Who among you, my countrymen, that is a father, would claim authority to make your child a slave because you had nourished him in infancy? 'Tis a strange species of generosity which requires a return infinitely more valuable than anything it could have bestowed; that demands as reward for a defense of our property a surrender of those inestimable privileges, to the arbitrary will of vindictive tyrants, which alone give value to that very property" Samuel Adams, Speech at the Philadelphia State House, 1 Aug 1776).

U.S. And Venezuela Afraid of Toyota, Competition, and Quality

The latest attack upon Toyota by the Monopolated Corporation of the United States tells me this morning that the newest "malfunction" is the steering wheel. Whatever. It's all a lie, of course, and only a few old ladies will fall for it.

I LOVE my Toyotas, all of them, and there are nearly a handful lining my driveway along with a lonely Detroit Union Pride auto for those times when a heavy-duty gas guzzler is needed as workhorse. They're in various stages of aging, but each one has driven across country several times, up hills, through valleys, forded streams, broken paths, gone where no man has gone before, and they are always faithful little vehicles.

One has been maimed by a deer that jumped out in front of it. One has a tricky driver's side window, a speaker that vibrates too much, and a dent along the side due to neighborly negligence, and the other is too new to tell what its idiosyncrasy is. All together there is over 40 years worth of trusty Toyota on the property.

But according to the news reports these good natured vehicles are demons that kill. The gas pedal sticks, the brakes give out, and now the steering wheel isn't steerable. I wonder if this is the same tactic Hugo Chavez, dictator to Venezuela is using on Toyota too?

Isn't it curious that Hugo Chavez threatens Venezuela's Toyota and the U.S. threatens its Toyota at the same time? Chavez says that if his country's Toyota doesn't meet his demands he will hand the company over to a Chinese operator.

I suffered the stuck gas pedal issue a couple years ago. It wasn't a danger, but more of a nuisance. It's not that the gas pedal sticks to the floor and causes the car to accelerate, but that the pedal sticks and the car won't accelerate. It was such a non threatening issue that I waited until the next tune-up to have the mechanic fix it, which he did very easily with a small adjustment and lubrication.

Usually, when the brakes don't work as well as they should it means it's time for new brake pads. This is a maintenance issue that every single brand of car has, not a Toyota issue.

And as far as steering problems go. Most of the time it is difficult to steer on icy roads, or when a wind is blowing, or when a driver isn't paying attention, or is eating a submarine sandwich while driving, or is staring at the unusually gorgeous lady on the sidewalk, or when a skunk scurries out, or when fleeing law enforcement, and countless other reasons.

The leading cause of steering malfunction, floored gas pedals, and poor brake function is an idiot driver. The other day an idiot crashed into my driveway, slamming up against the snow bank which stopped her from killing anyone for a few minutes. She was not driving a Toyota, but somehow all of these things malfunctioned in her car. Thank goodness the Toyotas weren't harmed!

I ran out to see how she was doing in her endeavors to get extracted from the drive way. I offered her the use of the manure shovel which works much better than a snow shovel, but she looked frightened of such a thing. I sure wasn't going to dig for her, especially when I saw how stunted her fashion sense was and that she could use a little exercise.

Really, I could not believe that a girl no older than 18 dressed as if she was from a time warp that hasn't progressed forward for the past 5 years (I'm old enough now that it doesn't matter what I wear. I'm timeless). She was from a small town over the hill. I could tell because I know licence plate numbers and which county is which. I'm very wary of drivers from over the hill because they drive so oddly and obliviously, as if they are all high on drugs. I'm bigoted against them solely based upon driving behind them and beside them for years.

I could not understand how on earth she made it over the hill, a mountain pass, yet couldn't drive down my street. It's all I could think about. Finally, I asked, "Did you really drive all the way over the hill?" I said it in such a tone, that she even understood what I meant! It was amazing.

And she explained to me that she got stuck on the street, then hit the gas pedal and went shooting out of the spot, nearly taking out the mail boxes, then over-corrected and before she could stop, my snow bank caught her. If it were not for that snow bank she would have caused real harm to the community.

Finally, her father arrived in his truck. I stood by and listened to him yell at her for a few minutes. It was obvious that the only way to communicate with her was through yelling, and that even then, only about half of the message or idea ever made it through her thick skull. Finally, I left them to their work and went back inside.

And I got to thinking, of how wonderful this Toyota farce could be. If I decide not to stop at a red light I can blame the gas pedal for accelerating, the brakes for not working, and the steering wheel for steering me across. When the officer pulls me over I can look innocent and say it wasn't my fault at all, that I had no choice in the matter, that the car made me do it. Honestly, Ossifer, it wasn't my fault! And if I want to make a little money to pay the fine I can sue the company for millions. But I'm not that kind of person, and my Toyotas aren't those kind of cars.

It's not real. It's an illusion. The United States government is enforcing corporate monopoly desires, destroying competition. Toyota makes great cars at a great price. The cars are made to last like a rechargeable battery bunny banging his drums. But for some reason, the tried and tired propaganda of fear is being foisted upon the dull Americans who really don't care.

As for me, the more cars get out of the way when I come barrelling down the road in one of my Toyotas, the better. I'll drive Toyota until it's banned and even then I'll drive it as a symbol of freedom and market competition. Really, I had no idea Toyota was such a cool and rebellious car until recently. Who would've known!

Nicotine Replacement: Patented Morality

Hug me till you drug me, honey;
Kiss me till I'm in a coma:
Hug me, honey, snuggle bunny;
Love's as good as soma (a little ditty from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World)

How does a smoking ban benefit Big Nicotine and inhibit free speech?

I found out through some very interesting research after having a look at the local anti-smoking site, which piqued my interest due to the fact that it appeared more of an advertisement for an assortment of nicotine products and prescription anti-depressants, rather than a place of encouragement for those desiring to quit using tobacco products.

Those who truly desire to help others do not spew hatred or segregationist laws against certain groups. They attempt to help them through programs that offer strength and tools that aid the individual's will power to overcome weaknesses.

The local anti-smoking site offered no help, but rather a defeatist message on each and every page that advised the tobacco user that they could never quit unless they took more nicotine along with anti-depressants, all of which were referred to by their brand names and proffered by the state run "quit" line. Amongst heroin addicts the replacement of the favored delivery technique with another is called "chasing the dragon." Of course, we call it "therapy."

One does not tell an alcoholic or drug addict that the only way to quit is to keep drinking alcohol or keep shooting up with the same drug but in a patented form. It doesn't work because it defeats the purpose. There is no such thing as a step-down method. There is only quitting and overcoming the initial discomfort, then never ever using again no matter how much time passes. This method also requires love, patience, and strength from the quitter's immediate community.

And so, due to this lack of love for their fellow humankind and community members, and because of the appearance of propaganda and advertising I went looking to see what I could see.

What I found is that The New Big Tobacco, or as I call it Big Nicotine, is bigger than the old Big Tobacco and has adopted the very policies that they accuse the tobacco companies of employing. Big Nicotine is the new frontier of the giant multi national pharmaceutical companies. If you have a problem of any kind, anything you can think of, they have a nicotine for that.

The pharmaceutical companies back nearly every anti-smoking campaign not because they give a damn about any one's health, but because they want everyone hooked on their patented nicotine products. Unpatented tobacco, such as is used in pipes, cigars, and cigarettes is a far cheaper and effective, not to mention a more pleasurable and sociable delivery device for nicotine. Until unpatented tobacco is banned it will not be possible for the pharmaceutical companies to monopolize the market and have every man, woman, and child who walks through the doors of their doctor's office or even the local gas station hooked on one form of nicotine or other.

Every person who lights up a cigarette in a public place is a walking advertisement for the competition. They nearly have a sign on them that says, "I patronise from another non patented, non monopoly source." Money is speech, and a person who smokes cigarettes in public is actually exercising their free speech and freedom to spend their money with whom they choose.

Pharmaceutical patented nicotine cannot make its customers into walking advertisements. When one is wearing a patch, pouching a piece of "gum," or "sucking" on a 30-minute long tooth-rotting lozenge, or inhaling from a medical inhaler or whatever other odd delivery device that Pharmaceutical Big Nicotine has invented; the user looks as if they're either sickly or a kid with strange, mouth deforming candy.

There is a patented nicotine for Alzheimer's, weight loss, Attention Deficit Disorder, Parkinson's, West Nile, depression and countless other commonly diagnosed problems.

And now the TobaccoFree groups are petitioning the states for higher visibility and easier access to Pharmaceutical Big Nicotine. They want it in "daily use" packs (like a pack of cigarettes) and down where the kiddies can see it and get it. They want it in every location that public displays of cigarettes have been banned from. In a step-by-step fashion the Pharmaceutical Big Nicotine is jostling for wider availability. And the anti-smoking groups are the pushers of this agenda. Perhaps, they mean well, but it looks as if they are corrupt and angry that there is competition with their product.

Why do supposedly health oriented movements such as the anti-tobacco campaigns righteously support addiction to patented nicotine and lobby for availability of Pharmaceutical Nicotine where children can easily get to it? Why do they support nicotine products at all? Why do they support the use of dangerous and numbing anti-depressants? Greed disguised as righteousness.

I'd rather see a happy person enjoying a cigarette than an unhappy person on anti-depressants and getting oral cancer from sucking on a nicotine lozenge or candy, thinking it was safe. These products are as dangerous, probably more dangerous than cigarettes or smoke in the air.

As in former days, when the tobacco companies advertised that their products were safe and recommended by doctors, so we are seeing an even worse repeat with Pharmaceutical Big Nicotine. The medical and health community is again saying that these nicotine products are safe and using that overly employed phrase of our times: The benefits outweigh the risks.

To who do the benefits of patented nicotine apply? Not to most of us unless one owns shares in a pharmaceutical company. In fact the risks outweigh the benefits for most of us. The risk of walking past a bit of cigarette smoke is far better for the overall freedom of a community than the billions in benefits to the Big Nicotine companies, and gradual encroachment upon our privacy and liberty from such invasive Big Nicotine backed bills as forced health care which seeks to monitor every part of a person's life, even to invade one's home and create citizen snoop groups, and designate all women as mentally ill if they have ever been pregnant (I read it in one of the bills). I'm sure there is a patented nicotine for women who have suffered the disease of pregnancy.

I'll pay that nearly $2 billion in health costs that smoker's supposedly cost us if it means keeping everyone else free from Pharmaceutical tyranny and ensures freedom of speech, and freedom from a new corporate state. We spend $1 billion in Afghanistan every ten days. A few cases of lung cancer are far cheaper and don't blow children to death. A child can survive cigarette smoke, but they can't run from bombs, rapists, landmines, or adult prescribed drugs.

It is far safer to accept those who choose to smoke cigarettes than to ban them, erasing the stigma around the addictive properties of nicotine. If the pharmaceutical companies are successful in banning their competition, people who don't know any better will no longer associate nicotine (the addictive element in tobacco) with tobacco, but rather as a safe and doctor-recommended addiction.

Eventually, children will be hooked on Big Nicotine, and the person sitting next to you in church will be on Big Nicotine, and the western world will be like those in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World hooked on Soma.

At least, a person who smokes cigarettes must exercise restraint and refrain from lighting up wherever and whenever they want. A person addicted to a smoke free, patented, Big Nicotine product will not have to exercise restraint and may chew, suck, or wear a patch nearly anywhere at anytime. This will create addicts who will have a more difficult time quitting nicotine than a person who smokes cigarettes.

Already, a person who smokes cigarettes experiences much of life without having to smoke. This is a benefit that Big Nicotine does not offer the consumer. The consumer will be constantly on the nicotine and dependent, but never receive the same pleasure that a person who smokes does.

The pharmaceutical monopoly is far larger and far more insidious than the old tobacco companies. They have succeeded in creating fear and hatred of those who choose to shop the competition. Imagine if every corporation could accomplish such a feat! What if the patented artificial sweetener companies were able to create hatred of those who used real sugar? Or if Walmart launched a campaign against those who shop in non corporate stores?

Why did the German anti-Semites led by Hitler so hate the Jews? Because quite a few of them were successful business owners, competition with the state, competition with ideas. And what did the corporate Socialists of Germany do when they banned Jews? They confiscated their property, even their gold tooth fillings to fund the state's war upon them and others.

This is what the pharmaceutical corporations are doing to the tobacco companies and to those who smoke tobacco. They are using the Tobacco Settlement money to fund the anti-smoking campaigns which push patented nicotine and hatred. Those who use tobacco are labelled as murderers, sub human, and dangerous to DNA. The anti-smoking campaigns pay deformed people to show up and preach the dangers of tobacco, while everyone gets to ogle them and transfer the image of a monster, a less human onto all tobacco users.

And we neglect to remember that most of us descend from tobacco users. Are we ruined, maimed, less human because of it? No. There was a time when nearly half the U.S. population used tobacco. This peak in tobacco use also coincided with a time we often laugh about because of its wholesomeness. We also admire the bravery of these past people who defeated Hitler's corporatism, while using tobacco products.

A patent is a monopoly and harms competition, which in turn harms freedom. Freedom from second-hand smoke is not freedom. Smoke is only a universal symbol of what we fear -- that angry smoke issuing from the nostrils of God, the fire of wrath upon a hypocritical and arrogant land, the Lake of Fire.

"Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears--that's what soma is" (Brave New World)

"According to the non partisan Center For Responsive Politics, pharmaceutical companies spent $900 million on lobbying between 1998 and 2005, more than any other industry. During the same period, they donated $89.9 million to federal candidates and political parties...." (Wikipedia)

"61 percent of Medicare spending on prescription drugs is direct profit for pharmaceutical companies" (Wikipedia)

The Pharmaceutical industry is the number one largest political lobby, while the Tobacco industry doesn't even rank in the top 50 of the major political lobbies.

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" (Ben Franklin)

image: Rembrandt, The Prodigal Son Returns

The Mind's Doors

There is a saying that says "whenever one door closes another door opens," or "when one door closes a window is opened."

Usually, we take this saying literally, meaning that when an opportunity has been missed, or closed to us there is always another opportunity around the corner, or a way out of our demise.

But our little brains are also designed this way, full of rooms with doors that are either locked or unlocked. It is said that a great majority of our brain is locked and not even utilised, which is a great mystery. Why is so much of our brain off limits with seemingly no purpose?

Those that have died and come back to tell of it have seen these rooms unlocked and the doors flung open as they pass on. And the ancients have commented upon this idea that our mind has many rooms.

When the Bard was younger he was in an accident and knew that he would die. He saw these rooms as he rushed from his body. And he wanted to stop and go in, rather than being forced past. He wanted to go in, especially to one room that was wonderfully warm and full of people standing around talking and laughing with each other. He glanced in and thought, "these are the kind of people I like and could spend a lot of time with. These are my kind of people."

Then, as he looked he was surprised to see that these were all people he had known and loved. Not everyone he knew and loved was in that particular room, but those who had a special sense of humor and intelligence and love of life. It was a certain type of warm and comfortable person in that room and they seemed to have the Bard in common. This fascinated the Bard, that having only him in common brought them together where they were enjoying each other's company. It looked like a perfect party. And as this Bard was about to pass through the doorway into the party, he was pulled on past rooms and rooms of people and events that he knew.

It didn't matter how briefly the Bard had known a person, or if he had forgotten a trivial event, everything was there along the hallway. It seemed that everything and everyone was in a room with like things and people. Each room was a kind of wonderful filing system. It was like going through an attic where one discovers things they had forgotten all about and wonders why they stopped using it or why they didn't see its value.

And as happens with these near-death experiences in which one rushes through a tunnel (the Bard's was a hallway) and sees a panorama of their life, one must be expelled out to the proverbial light or some other place. The Bard was expelled out into the vast and whispering universe where the stars are born and the silence has a sound of awe. The Bard saw beauty and sadness which no words can describe. And as the Bard gathered his courage to ask for the word, the name, he was abruptly rushed back through the tunnel where he found himself laying upon broken glass with bodies and claws clambering over him because his window was the only way out.

And no one cared about the Bard as he lay in a warped position. No one tried to save him. They cared only for themselves and no one else. He could tell this much and forced himself out onto the autumn grass. He rose and wondered why his companions were so distraught and so helpless, so stunned. He was not. First he wanted to rejoice in gladness, but when he saw that one of their company was missing he contained himself.

He yelled at his companions, wondering why they didn't care, why they left the last one alone. They were afraid even to venture near the place, the world upturned where an empty body could be laying. The Bard climbed back in and said his prayers and begged for mercy as he tugged and pulled, then cried with joy when the body came to and spoke. He pulled upon his companion who was dazed and could barely bring himself to speak. What had happened, what had he seen, what hall had he been down?

The Bard would never know what that last one saw. It must have been amazing. In the days following he said that it was the most amazing experience of his life and that it changed him forever. He told the Bard "thank-you," which made the Bard laugh. How could one be thankful for nearly dying? One of the Bard's other friends also said thank-you and that he felt such an odd presence. What had the Bard done to deserve such gratitude and appreciation from these two? Perhaps, one day he will find out.

And one friend would not look at the Bard after this. One friend despised the Bard, despised herself and said she should have gone to hell. She hated the Bard because the Bard loved her and forgave her. Isn't this the way of the world? We would rather accuse and be accused for our mistakes than be loved and love inspite of them.

In the end, when we all pass by our life, it will be those we have loved and who have loved us through our imperfections that will redeem us. Those who accuse and judge will be accused and judged. But it will be grace that wipes the record clean, not the accuser.

And don't imagine that brown-nosing and having a hundred "close" friends will rack up the grace points. No, only one person will have the branch of grace to extend, and it may be someone we never even noticed.

The New Puritans: Socialists

"I think that here lies the sense of literary creation: to portray ordinary objects as they will be reflected in the kindly mirrors of future times; to find in the objects around us the fragrant tenderness that only posterity will discern and appreciate in the far-off times when every trifle of our plain everyday life will become exquisite and festive in its own right: the times when a man who might put on the most ordinary jacket today will be dressed up for an elegant masquerade" (Vladimir Nabokov, A Guide to Berlin, 1925).

Those "kindly mirrors of future times" are also the forgetful mirrors or the fun-house distortion mirrors. As a person grows old and forgetful, so too does the world. In the early 1920s of Berlin, Nabokov had not yet experienced the Corporate-Religious fanatacism of the National Socialist German Worker's Party and its push towards a hygienic world, its scientific cure for cancer, and poverty....not yet.

Soon enough Nabokov and millions of others would think back to those times when the ordinary, the everyday trifle and jacket would be something to yearn for; remembering them as elegant and rich.

During the National Socialist German Worker's Party's reign science was the state's chosen superstition and religion. Nearly all doctors and scientists eagerly signed on in support of this wonderful lie. Even before the Jews were rounded up, the elderly, the deformed, and the war veterans were quietly destroyed. Imperfect babies were euthanized and issued death certificates which gave no indication that the child died of anything other than natural causes.

Homes and sanitariums for the invalid, elderly, and war veterans had gas chambers installed. Hundreds were gassed and incinerated at a time. The local villager's only complaints were in regard to the nuisance of the smoke and the dust it left upon things. These early gas chambers were the model upon which the death camps for Jews and other competition against the state's corporate interests were based.

Health was all important. The science, and Hitler's Socialist Worker's agreed. Organic and back-to-earth natural diets were all the rage. Hitler was a vegetarian because he was sure that it was healthier and kinder to animals. Yes, even animal rights were a beloved cause of the German Socialists. Evidently, they found it easier to get along with animals than with humans.

Gold watches were awarded by Hitler to those who had quit smoking cigarettes; an unhygienic habit associated with Jews, Indians, Gypsies, Blacks, jazz musicians, intellectuals, and any other enemy of the healthy Aryan pater familias. Passive smoke is so very destructive to genetic purity. But, of course, the smoke of bodies spewing out of an incinerator's chimney has absolutely no carcinogenic or dangerous effects whatsoever, or so the scientifically pure Germans seemed to believe. The Nazi smoking bans seemed to ignore their own addiction to the burning blood of innocents.

In a society that loved the male body, glorified it and worshipped it in all its neo Roman health, women were relegated the role of necessary for breeding. Women weren't permitted to smoke cigarettes for fear they would ruin the future purity of the Aryan race. A woman's place was in the home worshipping her husband who enjoyed male perfection more than her.

That's right, male self-love was a proud quality of the Socialists. We are told that homosexuals were sent to the same camps as the Jews and Gypsies. The effeminate and flimsy homosexuals were sent to the camps because they did not meet the Roman-Socialist ideal of maleness. Big, strong, male Socialists were not imprisoned. But, of course, those big, healthy gorgeous males used the effeminate homosexuals to push forth much of their agenda, scientific research, and information gathering before rounding them up.

I have watched this Roman-Socialist male rising the past few years. I have watched pseudo-science rising, and now the corrupted governments invested in the pharmaceutical and war contractor corporations.

I have always wondered why the people of Germany allowed Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party to accrue so much power and to kill so many people. Now I understand. Because the wheel has turned and now we are back where we were when Hitler came to power. We are as blind, self-righteous, and deluded by propaganda as the German people.

I always wondered why the religious and church community was largely silent. Now I know why. They are a large part of the problem. If it were not for the churches support of false righteousness and perfection, male glorification, female subservience, scientific falsehoods funded by corporations, and fear of non-members, Socialism's religious fanaticism could not gain a stronghold in any country.

There is a false belief within much of the religious community that they are different, at odds with the rest of the "liberal" and immoral world. They seem unable to see that nearly every belief and "moral" value they espouse are exactly the same ones those outside of their building also hold to.

The church operates as a large corporation every time it goes out to "save the world," and gain converts/customers. What happens when a new corporation/church comes along and offers a new product, or enacts a hostile takeover such as early Roman Catholicism and its offshoot, Islam have done? The customers/converts are compelled to remain loyal to that product or be killed for being "immoral." One way of creating religious loyalty is by pushing fear and ignorance upon the people. Government, corporations, and religions are all similar in their modi operandi.

We have come full circle and are seeing a melding of government, corporation, and church. There is a religious fervor in the air. The word "moral" drops down upon our heads after the little birdie chirps it in our ear. Sacrifice is spoken of and a return to harsh "realism" is being advertised as more favorable than the old mercy. We are told to give back a portion to the Lord/Government and he'll spread it around for his great projects, because he can't possibly act out his great miracles and works without our money. Yes, our god is an awesome god.

Satan and sorcery are everywhere and in everyone and the only way to distinguish between witches and holy ones is to put them to the test. If a person can't pass the surveillance camera, the thumb scan, body scanner, breath test, or Tom A. Swift's Electric Rifle (Taser) they are a witch.

We are living in fervently religious times, whether one admits it or not. The problem is that no one will admit it, and that most of us are socialists and fanatical religionists. We are greatly deceived and ignorant. We do not see how many we harm and murder in our self-righteousness. Not one person is innocent. Each time we tithe (or pay taxes or zakat, whatever one chooses to call it) to the government that money is invested in addictive and dangerous pharmaceuticals or in the war industry. The high priests are sacrificing lambs to a strange god with our money.

I am no peacenik or homeopathic zealot, but when war becomes profitable for local and federal governments because of the monetary profits and power to be made I find it impossible to support it. War should profit no one. When the pharmaceutical industry is also big business for the government it is no longer about health, but about banning competition in order to gain profits and power.

When Jesus came to the Jews a couple thousand years ago many of them couldn't believe it. He wasn't a king, a religious leader, a wealthy businessman. But He was a threat to kings, religious leaders, and wealthy businessmen.

Now, there is talk of the anti-christ within extremist factions of Socialist Islam and Socialist Christianity. Each of these groups has defined who the anti-christ is, how he looks, and how he should be fought. The Jews did the same thing a few thousand years ago with their expectations of their Savior. Most people won't recognise the anti-christ because they won't believe that he looks exactly like the reflection in the mirror and the person next to them in line at the check-out counter, and the person at the pulpit. How can we recognize anti-christ when we can't recognize Christ?

Jesus looks like His people, and so does the anti-christ. The anti-christ claims it can save us with every ban, health ordinance, prescription, technology, program, war, law, airbag, bailout, election, prison, school, police officer, carbon offset, treaty, condom, vaccine, riot, demonstration, tax, insurance policy, and bag of gold.

There is no money or power gained by extending mercy and forgiveness. It's not good business and is unfair, to those that have worked hard at perfection. How can a pharmaceutical company sell its pills to a person that forgives and is forgiven? It can't because the stress caused by bitterness and fear isn't there. How can the war and law enforcement corporations profit from mercy and forgiveness? How can the religions of the world profit from a forgiven population?

"For I desire mercy and not
sacrifice,
And the knowledge of God
more than burnt offerings" (Hosea 6:6)

If we are to "portray ordinary objects as they will be reflected in the kindly mirrors of future times; to find in the objects around us the fragrant tenderness" for posterity to look fondly upon, we must see the world around us in this time first. There will be no kindly looking back upon us if we are cruel and blind, if we are witch hunters, accusers, and destroyers of our fellow humans in the name of purity. The picture we want painted for posterity is one of "fragrant tenderness," not corporate-religious socialism.

Blackstone's Ratio: Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer (also espoused by the Hebrew Patriarch Abraham, Maimonides, Fortescue, Increase Mather, Ben Franklin....

Socialists and Witch Finders General like to twist it to "better than ten innocents suffer than one guilty man escape."

image: American school children saluting as they recite The Pledge of Allegiance, pre 1943. Before 22 Dec, 1942 U.S. school children saluted the flag in a manner common to socialists around the world. The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by a Baptist minister and Christian Socialist named Francis Bellamy. The western world was proudly Socialist once before and is once again. And like the Nazis we don't think of ourselves as racists or segregationist or evil. We don't see that the only difference between our time and the past is a few years and the word Nazi.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Linked To Hamsters

I find it quite interesting that no matter how many times I try to allow comments to be posted on my previous post it never sticks. Is this censoring by Blogger? I'll be finding the answer after a few posts. I wonder if they know about the Bill of Rights?

And boy, we have it sooo hard here in America. I'm surprised we're not all dead with these plagues and hardships we face on a daily basis. Swine flu, cigarette smokers, Toyotas, Depression. Yeah, Depression, economic and otherwise, but these other things are (of course) much more devastating and dangerous. If only we could have it easy like they do in third world countries where their only problems are shelter, starvation, war, dirty water, and selling one's child into slavery.

I can think of nothing more frightening than being in a Toyota, driven by a tobacco user who hasn't been vaccinated against "swine" flu. Jeepers, it's like playing Russian Roulette. What if the gas pedal sticks, what if one gets lung cancer from 2nd hand smoke, what if they sneeze on you and you get the flu? I'd rather jump off a cliff with no bungee cord to bounce me back.

We should follow the advice of the Confidence Man, er, I mean the Corporations, I mean the Government and live in paralyzed fear. They say park the Toyota, get the shot and quarantine yourself, ban those who smoke cigarettes. I have a better idea. Get a giant hamster ball and knock yourself out, over and over again against the same wall.

I say we ban the obsessive compulsive disorder of the Government Corporations and blow smoke in people's faces (metaphorically), press the accelerator down to the faulty floor mat (metaphorically), and sneeze on everyone we meet (and not say "God Bless you) to do our part in creating a sustainable world population. That will leave more beer, fat, fun, and other joyous "sins" for those of us who know we're going to die and want to enjoy ourselves before it's too late.