Does Anyone Remember the Lessons of Black Americans?

Does anyone recall learning about the old days and of how people were put on the auction block and bid upon?

Part of the process of choosing a good slave was an examination of their body and teeth. A potential owner could touch and fondle any part of another person/slave.

Does anyone remember learning of how slaves weren't permitted to choose their occupation, their free time, or allowed to travel off the plantation without written permission of their master -- and even then, they were in danger?

Does anyone remember that slaves didn't often marry, but instead had several partners, and that they weren't allowed to stay home and raise their children, but had to leave them to the care of nature or someone that didn't love the child while the parent was at work for the master?

Does anyone remember that even after being granted so-called freedom many states and townships banned Black Americans from owning firearms?

Does anyone remember that it was forbidden to teach a slave to read or write, especially to write?

Does anyone remember that slaves were forbidden from gathering together in large groups to worship God?

Does anyone remember that in many parts of the country the slave population far outnumbered the non-slave population, yet they still submitted to being owned, rarely ever organizing effective revolts? It was nearly impossible for the slaves to organize and plan when they were banned from gathering together or having any free time or education.

Does anyone remember learning of Jim Crow and Separate But Equal laws? Does anyone remember how Black Americans were banned from certain businesses, universities, and neighborhoods for the "health" of the non-blacks?

Does anyone remember that the United States Constitution did not apply to Black Americans for many years, and that even after ratification of the 16th Amendment, the Constitutional rights of Black Americans were ignored?

Does anyone remember that the shoddy clothing, rations of poor quality food, and the paltry gifts given at Christmas were all provided by the "generosity" of the master?

Does anyone remember these lessons from our history books and can anyone make connections with our time? I guess, not, since these things aren't obvious. Even Black Americans can't see the connections, since they're not as black and white as they were in former days.

And does anyone recall how the slaves of America were set free? It wasn't they, but outside forces that fought and died. The help came from outside the slave community.

And then, does anyone remember how Black Americans won their rights as Americans? It took a long time, but they learned who they were and how to stand up for themselves and to defend their dignity and rights as humans.

And so, I wonder who will come in from outside to free the Americans? Who will fight and die for us? And how long will it take for us to learn to defend ourselves and move from superstition to educated and enlightened learning?

Americans are illiterate, uneducated and superstitious and believe in the Bogey Man. He's gonna get us. Boo!

We've wasted the lives of those lost during the American Civil War and we've wasted the lives of those who defended the rights of Black Americans in the following years. We've wasted their lives because now, we're all owned. At least, the slaves knew who their master was. We have no idea who has bought us or even that we've been sold.

image: The Problem We All Live With by Norman Rockwell. A painting and a title I find particularly revolting, racist.

Why You Should Read Lolita Before Traveling In the U.S.A.: American Travelers Are Lolita, and The TSA Is Humbert Humbert

In 1955 Vladimir Nabokov, a Russian emigre to the United States, published Lolita, a tale of a linguistically and aesthetically talented pedophile who runs off with his 12 year old step daughter, "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta" (first lines of Lolita).

Lolita was not published in the U.S. until 1958 due to its pornographic subject matter. Nabokov intensely hated cruelty to others and sexual deviants. So why did he write a book from the viewpoint of the pedophile, Humbert Humbert, who has conned several generations of readers and academics with the beautiful account of his love and "protection" of a 12 year old girl?

Nabokov hated evil. He had escaped the Bolsheviks in Russia, then later, escaped the Nazis with his wife of Jewish descent and their young son. They arrived in America and fell in love with it. Nabokov's wife, Vera, promptly purchased a gun to replace the one she had left behind in Europe, and learned to drive.

Nabokov, a seemingly absent-minded butterfly-chasing professor with an innocence about him that relied upon his wife's ferocity and protection liked to look at things from a very detailed and scientific perspective. He hated evil and studied it, dissected it, and understood its minutest detail. He climbed into the mind of evil when he wrote Lolita, shocking readers and enchanting millions with the beauty of his language.

Lolita was a triumph and proved how easily a population can be tricked into accepting evil, calling it beautiful, spending entire lifetimes studying its details without ever getting to its ultimate meaning. Anyone can tear apart an engine, or dissect a body and name the parts and figure out how they operate, but most cannot figure out the ultimate meaning -- why was this human body created, what is its purpose? How does one get into the mind of the creator via the act of dissection and cataloguing of the parts? It is impossible if one has no love or passion driving them. Creators and inventors generally have more love and passion which compels them to work harder and longer at something, creating a thing that changes the world for better.

Most inventions and creations were initially designed for the betterment of mankind or to add beauty or freedom. But many inventions are corrupted and used for evil purposes. The written word was made to better the world, but evil tries to corrupt it. The same goes for all art. We see technology abused, being used to make life harder rather than easier. Even Lolita, meant to show us evil from its own perspective, has been corrupted and adopted as a wonderful and dreamy tale by many gullible girls and joking young men, none of whom are aware that they have been artfully conned and that Nabokov proves his case of how evil survives and is accepted into the world.

Nabokov, the great enchanter and magician deceives many with his artistic slight of hand, keeping our focus upon the aesthetic, causing us to accept Humbert Humbert's defence because it is merely art and has no ultimate meaning or moral. If art is only aesthetic, then beauty has no meaning, thus what is the point of creating it?

Nabokov, a talented lepidopterist, studied butterflies and moths and was fascinated by their beauty. These creatures are patterned in ways that attract and enchant us, but also hide them from evil. Some butterflies blend in with their surroundings while others mimic dangerous animals to avoid being eaten. Nabokov learned that a butterfly's patterning is not merely aesthetic, but also enhances its survival. And this is what art's purpose is. Art is not merely aesthetic, but driven by truth and survival. If we cannot learn from art how to be wiser, better, kinder, and more graceful to others; to have pity, then art has no purpose, much as a shiny car has no meaning or purpose without an engine. A car is nice to look at, but without an engine it gets us nowhere.

The reason I expound upon Nabokov's Lolita and art is that more than ever America is deceived by the Humbert Humberts who claim they love us and want to protect us, while molesting us in various ways. We are made to pass through Naked Body Scanners, which undress us and expose us to dangerous mutagenic radiation. We are searched and groped by TSA officials as we travel the country, much as Lolita was groped by Humbert Humbert along the highways and byways of America. The stories now include "enhanced" searches that have left many feeling sexually violated after having had their penises, anuses, labia, and breasts felt by TSA screeners.

Now, does Humbert's love for Lolita feel nice and beautiful? Sure, he attacked the pornographic movie maker that ran off with Lolita, because that kind of art is immoral and degrading; but what of Humbert's protective and fatherly love for her? More than ever Nabokov's Lolita is important, for we all are her.

Was Lolita clean and innocent as the wind-driven snow? Was she faultless? No. But was that any excuse for Humbert Humbert to molest her? Was Lolita a kind and sweet child? No. She was obnoxious and sometimes crude. Was she more deserving of Humbert's sexual predation because of this? No. Americans are like this 12 year old girl and even though we are annoying and obnoxious and immoral it does not mean that we deserve to be treated by our states, by our fellows that work at TSA, as criminals in need of being stripped down or molested as we travel. Humbert Humbert protected Lolita as much as our airports are protecting us.

This is not beautiful, this is not America. This isn't even Nazi Germany. This is worse. This is worse for numerous reasons. Firstly, it's far worse and more abusive passing through United States airport security than in the rest of the world. America is supposed to be less abusive than the rest of the world. Second, the atrocities of the Nazis and American eugenicists and corporations in the first part of the 20th century are not so far removed from memory that we have forgotten them and what they looked like -- and what is going on in the United States right now resembles these past times.

The TSA's arrogance is only a small, yet extremely visible HINT as to what period of history we have regressed to. If a Naked Body Scanner, a long line in which one is divested of their possessions and shoes, hurried along, and subjected to physical searches which involve humble and silent endurance while one's anal and sexual reproduction areas are touched by uniformed employees of the government before being boarded upon crowded vehicles traveling somewhere doesn't wake us up and cause deja vu; then far worse than what happened in Nazi-controlled areas of Europe awaits us.

Rather than humbly lining up like the Jews, believing they'd eventually return home, we should stop cowering in embarrassment and start saying to hell with the "law," which breaks every law written into our soul. American travelers aren't terrorists and neither are visitors from other countries. The terrorists are the ones that apply for TSA jobs, and willingly carry out the orders of their superiors. If TSA employees were intelligent Americans they'd go on strike until they no longer were made to mistreat their fellow Americans. The terrorists are the ones groping for your wallet and now, your genitals. Soon, the women and children will be divided from the men, then the children from the women as enhanced airport security. It's already happening on an individual level. What next? Confiscation of Passport and Citizenship? Child sacrifice? When will their appetite be filled?

Wake up, America. Don't let the lives lost of the millions of Jews and others be for nothing. It's time to wake up out of our self-righteous and false morals. We are imperfect, we are obnoxious, we are all sinners, and we're not afraid of it. The Nazis were afraid of sin and imperfection and tried to hide it and eradicate it. We don't have to fall for that lie.

America wasn't founded as a utopia away from imperfection, but a place that would toughen up and accept it. That First Amendment isn't for the perfect or the safe people, but to protect the imperfect and those that speak unsafe things even if they are the truth and offend others. Our entire Constitution was designed to protect the so-called "impure," the "unsafe," the "sinful," the obnoxious, the rude, and the human. If the Constitution was only for the perfect and the moral, then our Founding Fathers would not have had any rights.

According, to Britain the American Revolutionaries were a bunch of terrorists, criminals, and tax evaders. And, according to our side of history they were brave, courageous, educated lovers of freedom. It all depends on who is writing history as to what the words "terrorist," "art," "pedophile," and "free" mean. We want to be on the right side of history. The trick is figuring out what the "right" side is. Usually, it's the side that is willing to break the law to show pity and hospitality to others when they are traveling in an inhospitable world.

America, this is not ancient Sodom where travelers were subjected to rape when visiting that town. Why are we forcing ourselves upon travelers? How does it protect us to treat citizens and visitors to this country this way? We are not Nazis, not Humbert Humbert, not Sodomites -- are we?

image: George Washington, Commander of the Terrorist Americans who threatened Britain's safety and health, also known as The Father Of Our Country, The United States Of America.

American Travelers Uncovered At Their Own Expense

I'll be traveling soon and have been studying the TSA site in hopes of passing the security exams I will encounter along the way. And I wonder to myself, if it's really this dangerous to fly, then why isn't it banned altogether as so many other health risks are these days?

It's amazing how much fear our government is in when it comes to travelers. Every particle must be examined and X-rayed. And now, passengers must stand in a Stick 'Em Up pose and have naked photos taken. Why would someone willingly give their government which is supposed to protect them, not expose them, a naked photo of them self, but not dear Granny or their own child?

Granny would take better care of that naked body shot than anyone else and protect it from all other eyes because it embarrasses her to even have such a thing, and she's embarrassed for you. She'd probably tear it into a million pieces, then burn it to make sure no one ever saw it.

And most children would also be embarrassed to possess a nude photo of their parent, and would hide it from any friends that may see it. Any parent who gave their child a naked photo of themselves would be considered a pervert. Conversely, any parent that gave a stranger a photo of their child naked would be a pervert. Any parent so afraid of their own child that they forced them to strip down upon entering and leaving the house needs help. And any child old enough to stand up for them self should never allow this kind of abuse from a parent. If a child is this dangerous, then they should be confined behind barbed wire and constantly monitored by professional guards.

What if you were a woman and had been raped by a knife-wielding man and from that point on demanded that all men, including relatives, entering your house submit to a strip search to make sure they weren't carrying any weapons or other dangerous objects? People would pity this woman and think her paranoid and in need of psychological help in order to regain her confidence and ability to live in a world were most are harmless and only a few dangerous. Wouldn't it also help such a woman to own a gun and learn self-defense techniques? America is this woman and has been attacked, but she hasn't been given the tools and confidence to face the world again.

Why would we trust the government and an invisible viewer with an image of our naked body but not a close friend or relative? It seems that a relative or close friend would be a better guardian and more respectful of this image than a person or government that has no personal love or interest in us. Not all of us are Playboy Play Mates or gigolos and there's a reason for that.

We live in a society that is image-obsessed, thinking that image is everything, and tells us everything about a person. Yet, increasingly, we are afraid of human touch and contact. We are paranoid of physical touch, which is not a cold image.

I've observed this fear of human contact around my little town. I've seen girls snap at men for touching them in the smallest way or by accident when passing by. I've seen guys stand like statues, their arms crossed over their chests in large crowds, glaring at anyone who dares tap them on the shoulder.

I've overheard girls talking about "the circle," an invisible area that others should know better than to enter. Evidently, there is an unspoken rule these days that says "thou shalt not cross within a few inches of any other person at any time." These girls were agreeing with each other that it was very rude of others to get too near, even though they were in a crowd. And this wasn't even about being touched or bumped up against, this was about getting too near although never having made physical contact. Yet, these same girls will post their image and every detail of their lives online and dress attractively. If one really doesn't want to be touched or have anyone get near to them they should refrain from bathing several days before going into public, step in a fresh dog pile, dump an ashtray over their head, and spill a glass of whiskey and coke on their clothes, and write "leper" across their forehead.

If you wanted to keep me at a distance you'd put on too much perfume. It works every time. My eyes roll up into my head, I feel as if a plastic bag is being wrapped around my head, and I wish there was a tobacco smoker in the vicinity to hide the smell (incidentally, where I live the indoor tobacco ban supposedly includes perfume, incense, candles and other strong smells in the air. I doubt that anything other than the tobacco ban is enforced).

Anyway, I'm not so much offended by the radiation factor of the full-body scan in airports, as by our society's willingness to give a government such power and a nude photo, which they never paid for. I don't know about you, but giving away naked photos of myself wasn't what I paid for when I bought my airline ticket. It offends me and breaks my heart when I see people standing in a pose reminiscent of a crucifixion.

Once, a long time ago, a man was hung on a cross, judged between two criminals. His crime was that he was a king, a person with dignity and who desired all people be royalty and their nakedness covered. He was naked and the entire world saw him and became obsessed with the image of him naked and bleeding, prone, unable to cover himself from our gaping and disrespectful eyes. And now, we are all like him, naked, being judged with the terrorists although we are royalty.

Anyone who thinks a naked body scanner protects them from death is a hypocrite. That America is this weak, this afraid is sad. A naked body scanner cannot save us or protect us from evil. Uncovering people has never saved anyone from crime. Whenever people are uncovered, laid bare, and treated as criminals by their master or government it has been a time of great suffering and hatred.

Can a naked body scanner read a heart? If it could I'd put the things at the entrance of every state capitol building and in Washington, D.C., for this is where the most danger to American safety resides. These few men and women have images that appear clean and safe, but are their hearts free of terrorist threats, do they use their pens as weapons of defense against evil or to enact evil upon women and children by stealing freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and fought for by a few belligerent and brave souls during the Revolutionary War?

I'm not Jesus and I won't sacrifice my life for a government that is afraid of me. If I sacrifice my life and my dignity it will be for those I love and for freedom and those brave enough to love me.

What is America so afraid of, what is our government afraid of? Why do we believe it makes us safe to hand over our freedom and ease of travel to a government agency? When a government restricts and controls freedom of movement and travel, rather than increases it we should be very concerned. When a government accuses all citizen travelers of being potential threats, then we must wonder why. Has America grown so weak and prone, so exposed and defenseless that it fears everything and everyone? What happened to the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave? Where are those who remember these words and what they mean?

Free doesn't mean tobacco free, sugar free, or free from something. It means free to DO something. Freedom is an action, not something that is excluded from the mix. We've twisted the word free to mean something is missing and that somehow this is a good thing. We now identify ourselves as free from this or that, rather than free to do this or that. America is not free if it thinks it's terrorist free. America is free when it's free to do, to take action, to move about, to stand for freedom, to stand against evil -- because evil is everywhere and always will be.

The only way to fight evil is with freedom to do, not freedom from.

Note: I will be requesting a pat down in place of the full body scan wherever possible. I can see who is touching me and prefer this human touch, even if slightly invasive and humiliating. I'd rather not lie to myself that I am fully clothed by stepping into the full body scanner. I much prefer the truth and the truth is often quite unpleasant -- which is why so many silently step into the scanner.

image: Amelia Earhart

Rangel's H.R. 5741 Universal National Servitude Act

On July 15, 2010 Charlie Rangel introduced in Congress the Universal National Slavery Act, or H.R. 5741 Universal National Service Act:

"To require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service, either as a member of the uniformed services or in civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, to authorize the induction of persons in the uniformed services during wartime to meet end-strength requirements of the uniformed services, and for other purposes"

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-5741

H.R. 5741, The Universal National Slavery Act, will require every man and woman to give up all rights and freedoms for a bare minimum of two years and if they do not perform their services satisfactorily they will be penalized. Isn't being forced into servitude penalty enough? They'd have to come up with some kind of torture to penalize me, because I'd be pretty numb and unable to feel punished if I was a walking dead person anyway.

Supposedly, America needs more homeland security and reserve power for when we go to war. We've been at war since I was born. It's like Brave New World and I have grown almost apathetic towards it. We're always in some little podunk country, fighting drug cartels or religious extremists. Supposedly, they're always uncivilized and living in the Stone Age, yet seem to wreak havoc and put our technology and enlightenment to the test. And we always think we have a moral perrogative to discipline these dirty little children for fear of their Weapons of Mass Destruction and fundamentalist religions.

Are we officially the home of the New Nazi Germany? Who the heck are we planning on invading and going to war with in the near future that requires forced national servitude to Homeland Security and the Armed Forces? Why does America see a need for increased Homeland Security?

The fact is that the U.S. is slowly being turned into a giant continental prison. We are tracked, scanned, told what we can and can't ingest, and controlled for our own "protection," exactly the same way prison inmates are treated. Often, when a prisoner is let loose they don't know how to function in the free world and end up back in prison. Americans are inmates and have no idea how to function outside its dirty walls.

America doesn't need Universal National Slavery. We need people to have a country that makes them proud and protective and loving enough to volunteer of their own free will. We need hearts, not mere bodies in the Armed Forces. I want the best and the best comes from the heart and freedom, not from forced servitude. Slaves don't put pride into their work. Free people do.

image: Arch of Titus

Tolkien, Tobacco, Censorship, and Liberty

I recently received a very nice hard back edition of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings as a gift. I last read this work when I was 13 years old and have wanted to read it since the film versions came out, but never got around to it.

I like to do a little research upon an author following a reading of them. It is helpful to understand a little of the private interests and passions of an author to understand why they care so much about their literary creations, and work so hard upon them.

I found it interesting that Wikipedia's biography of J.R.R. Tolkien had to use a picture of him from 1916 in military uniform, when he was an unknown and only 24 years old. The only other picture of him on the Wikipedia bio was of Tolkien in 1911, when he was 19.

The probable reason that Wikipedia could not, or would not use a more appropriate picture of J.R.R. Tolkien, one that showed him during the time he became known to the world outside of the University of Oxford for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is because there aren't many close-up photos of him without a tobacco pipe in or near his mouth.

Usually, a Wikipedia entry displays, or should display the first defining photo as the one that shows the person as they are most known and recognized by the world, not as they looked in childhood or as a teen. The childhood photos, should be relegated to the section pertaining to childhood. If the bio is describing Bette Davis or some movie star known for her good looks, the defining picture should be one that shows her at her peak, not one that shows her as an old hag. A picture of the youthful Albert Einstein would not be the defining image the world has. It would look out of place and odd when we all know he had unkempt white hair. Perhaps, Einstein carried his pipe a bit lower than Tolkien which allowed for the illusion that he was a tobacco-free thinker.

J.R.R. Tolkien was born in 1892 and died in 1973, which means he lived to be 81 years old. If he hadn't smoked he would've lived forever and The Lord of the Rings would look quite different (although, in the literary world one's creation is considered to make one immortal). I wonder if writing about Hobbits smoking tobacco qualifies as 2nd or 3rd hand smoke? And why does he look so much happier with the pipe than without it? He's probably glad he's not stuck on a piece of our modern PhrankenPharma nicotine gum.

Unlike the film version, which depicts the victorious Hobbits returning to their peaceful and untouched home in the Shire, the book shows an entirely different picture. Tolkien shows that the last battle is the one closest to home.

In the final chapters of the book, the Hobbits; Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry return home to the Shire after having gone to Hell and back, saving the earth from the dark evil of Sauron by tossing the Ring of power into the depths, forever cutting Sauron off.

The Hobbits return home to find gates across the roads, Rules which dictate the lives of the Shire; preventing the inhabitants from lighting fires, freely travelling, sharing food or home with strangers; and that beer and tobacco are no longer allowed for use amongst the common folk, being reserved only for the few who lord over them. Anyone that breaks a rule or speaks up is confined in the Lockholes by the Shirriffs who enforce the Rules.

There is general poverty amongst the people and the land. The homes have been burned down and ugly row houses line the road where once beautiful trees grew. The gardens have gone to weed, and the new mill belches out dirt that pollutes the river and air. The wizard, Saruman, has decided to set up a monopoly over the lives of the Shire Hobbits, which began innocently enough with a prohibition upon beer, but escalated to every aspect of life.

Merry wonders "What's the matter with this place?" ("The Scouring of the Shire," The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien).

One of the native Hobbits explains: "We grows a lot of food, but we don't rightly know what becomes of it. It's all these 'gatherers' and 'sharers', I reckon, going round and counting and measuring and taking off to storage. They do more gathering than sharing, and we never see most of the stuff again" ("The Scouring of the Shire").

"[O]n every wall there was a notice and a list of Rules. Pippin tore them down. There was no beer and very little food, but with what the travellers brought and shared out they had a fair meal; and Pippin broke Rule 4 by putting most of next day's allowance of wood on the fire.
"'Well now, what about a smoke, while you tell us what has been happening in the Shire?' he said.
"'There isn't no pipe-weed now,' said Hob; 'at least only for the Chief's men. All the stocks seem to have gone.....'" ("The Scouring of the Shire").

"'No welcome, no beer, no smoke, and lots of rules....'" ("The Scouring of the Shire").

"'There's hundreds of Shirriffs all told, and they want more, with all these new rules'" ("The Scouring of the Shire").

Sounds a bit like my town and the rest of the country. The bigger the jails, the larger the police force the more criminals are invented. In the United States of America one is lucky if they have never been arrested or jailed. At least, 1 out of every 25 people is jailed in their lifetime, far exceeding Russia or China.

Many good people are sitting in our jails and prisons at this moment, some for traffic or parking tickets. In a jail not far from me sits a grandfather who loves his grandchildren and became their guardian when the children's mother (his daughter) became a neglectful drug addict. He protested Social Services constant and intrusive visits to his house to make sure he was taking care of the children and was arrested for standing up for his rights and family. He committed no crime other than doing the right thing and for telling Social Services to stop coming to his house.

"'So things went from bad to worse. There wasn't no smoke left, save for the Men; and the Chief didn't hold with beer, save for his Men, and closed all the inns; and everything except for Rules got shorter and shorter, unless one could hide a bit of one's own when the ruffians went round gathering stuff up 'for fair distribution': which meant they got it and we didn't....'" ("The Scouring of the Shire").

The four Hobbits, returned from battles, set about "raising the Shire," and waking the inhabitants from their sleep and powerless condition. They route out Saruman's thugs, although not without some loss of life. The Shire was ready to overthrow the Rules and those that forced them to live in a world "fair" only to the greedy. When we hear the words "fair" and "unfair" we need to ask what exactly is meant by these words, for most often they are employed by mean misfits of society.

After freeing the captives from the Lockholes, Frodo is appointed Deputy Mayor until the Mayor is properly recovered from his time in prison. Frodo promptly lays off the majority of Rule enforcement:

"The only thing that he did as Deputy Mayor was to reduce the Shirriffs to their proper functions and numbers" ("The Grey Havens," The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien).

Not only did the Hobbits save the earth from Sauron, an equivalent to our Satan, but they introduced Middle-Earth to tobacco smoking. The Prologue of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings details a bit of the history of this "art" in the section entitled "Concerning Pipe-weed":

"There is another astonishing thing about Hobbits of old that must be mentioned, an astonishing habit: they imbibed or inhaled, through pipes of clay or wood, the smoke of the burning leaves of a herb, which they called pipe-weed, or leaf, a variety probably of Nicotiana. A great deal of mystery surrounds the origin of this peculiar custom, or 'art' as the Hobbits preferred to call it....

"And certainly it was from Bree that the art of smoking the genuine weed spread in recent centuries among Dwarves and such other folk, Rangers, Wizards, or wanderers, as still passed to and fro through that ancient road-meeting. The home and centre of the art is thus to be found in the old inn of Bree, The Prancing Pony....

"Hobbits first put it into pipes. Not even the Wizards first thought of that before we did. Though one Wizard that I knew took up the art long ago, and became as skilful in it as in all other things that he put his mind to."

How much longer before this book is banned for its universal message of liberty and of overcoming evil? How much longer before it is censored and conveniently forgotten, along with so many other great works of literature? Will our children and grandchildren find this book, complete and as its author wrote it? Already, its author's image is being censored, in a way typical of Soviet Russia, when it commonly erased images of those no longer politically correct. And pipe-weed is nearly banned in favor of Saruman's Phake Pharma Nicotine monopoly of patches, gums, lozenges, inhalers, and other patented "therapies" for those that enjoy life too much.

images: J.R.R. Tolkien

Why Taverns Are Dangerous To The United States of Pharma

If I had a church it would be Sheila Martin's Top Hat Tavern in Hutchinson, Kansas. And I'd get something in return for my tithes: Holy Communion with my brothers and sisters.

"Well, I'll tell you what you need to do if you think something's everywhere: start on your block. Start at your house. And spread out and get it stopped" (Sheila Martin).

Tobacco Bans, Genetics, Big Pharma, Religion, and Native Peoples

Think a smoking ban is about health? Think again. It's all about genetic cleansing and Big Pharma monopoly and federal control. If it were really about health the Food and Drug Administration, a State agency, would not be mandating that manufactured cigarettes be coated in a toxic carcinogen under the guise of "fire safe." This is purposeful poisoning of those who smoke tobacco and those who choose to love and befriend them.

The U.S. government deliberately poisoned alcohol used for bootleg production during Prohibition, causing the deaths of tens of thousands. This poisoning was intended to frighten people from drinking. What it really accomplished was the killing off of those in the lower socioeconomic strata, those who could not afford to purchase high quality alcohol. And no one cares about this group, unless there is profit to be made off of them in the name of philanthropy and special interests.

What Prohibition accomplished was the eradicating of countless small and local breweries, taverns, and other businesses that worked in a symbiotic relationship. These were local citizens, families that worked and lived in their local community. Prohibition accomplished the establishment of monopoly over alcohol production and distribution (Mafia). Those who knew that Prohibition would one day end swooped in and bought the bankrupt family breweries for small change, then made out like bandits when Prohibition was lifted. There is even growing speculation that Prohibition may have helped lead to the Great Depression by putting many out of home and business, thus causing less tax revenue and consumer activity amongst this silent group of new poor.

The past few years have seen a dramatic reduction in tobacco farms, and tobacco use as a result of the federal and Big Pharma-backed war on tobacco use (even the CIA/Battelle Memorial Institute are funding the anti-tobacco movement!). Like many of the family operated breweries before Prohibition, many of these tobacco farmers have been operating for several generations and proud of their product. But with tobacco prohibition rising, the State is paying them to quit in the U.S. and Canada. Now the State is ramping up its attack on Indian reservations, many of whom produce and/or sell tobacco products. The tribes of the north east in Canada and the U.S. are seeing an increase in restrictions, freedoms, and even troops threatening them.

Quite a few of the Indian reservations have been infiltrated by Marxist/Socialist ideologies, racism, and New Age corruptions of their spiritual beliefs, and elected officials more beholden to special interest money than to the people. There is also an influx of gang recruiting occurring upon the reservations. These are all purposeful strategies for weakening what may actually turn out to be the last stand against complete State and Big Pharma/Chemical control of the entire North American continent. (Note: Philip Morris, now Altria, is part of this attack on small tobacco producers, conducting a campaign against the tobacco manufacturers of New York's reservations at this very moment. Evidently, they believe they are too big to fail, and that betraying smaller tobacco producers will somehow make them look good.).

If tobacco bans are not repeats of hate movements and genetic cleansing, then why are they resorting to the same language and tactics used by these movements?

"The ugly truth is that smokers are not anything like junkies or alcoholics or prostitutes or anyone else who feels powerless over a hideous addiction. They are far worse.

"Smokers are alone the degenerates of society in that they share their poison with everyone within breathing vicinity" (Andrea Peyser, "Cancer Sticking It To Whining Nico-Fiends," 31 March 2003, emphasis added)

Why does my local Tobacco Free movement display a cartoon depicting a tobacco smoker shot dead by three gun-toting zealots because "he was packing"?

Why does the local Big State and Big Pharma funded highschool brownshirt group have T.V. commercials with dour-faced do-gooders holding pictures of camels with contorted lips and grasshoppers while their little voices say "I am not your grasshopper," and "I don't spit"? These are tried and true tactics used to subliminally tap into mankind's tendency to think of certain groups as less human, sub human, not human. Depicting a tobacco chewer as a plague insect, such as a grasshopper implies that these are only insects with no soul which should be crushed underfoot. In days past, Jews, Blacks, Tutsi, and Indians were shown as less human, more animal. It wasn't right then, and it's not right now. It's heinous and disgusting.

And speaking of spitting and contorted lips and faces. I've seen more non-tobacco users spitting and contorting than tobacco users. Yes, another sign of the past rising its ugly head. I've been spit upon, called names, and given looks of death because I am tainting the purity of the gene pool by existing. They said that about about other groups in the past too.

If tobacco bans are not about genetic cleansing then why has the local Tobacco Free site recently changed its wording for the word "group" to "cluster," a word used to describe a genetic group of people in scientific circles?

The local anti-Tobacco/pro Pharma nicotine group is pushing for an outdoor ban on tobacco chewers and smokers.

"Arguments for [non smoking] policy: Changes the social norms around tobacco use by eliminating highly visible 'clusters' of smokers....."

"Clusters," not people freely congregating and socializing. "Smokers," not people, but things that cluster and smoke. Not human.

The word "cluster" is very specific to genetics research as a way to discuss distinct groups of people who share genetic commonalities. It also has a distinctly malignant sound to it, as of disease.

There are literally hundreds, perhaps thousands, of researchers funded by tax dollars and Big Pharma trying to pinpoint and prove a genetic marker that defines those who use coffee, tobacco, and alcohol. This is barely a justifiable use of tax payer money which should not be confiscated from hard working people for such useless purposes.

When reading these "objective" and "scientific" pieces of paper one must read them as if reading a twisted form of metaphor. The geneticists have spent much time and discussion formulating their language in order to hide what it is they really are saying in order to confuse and deceive new students and older "clusters" who remember history.

It is a bit difficult to see modern racism because it does not always seem clearly defined or focused upon external traits such as skin color or religion. From a superficial level a ban upon those who use tobacco may look benign and as if it has nothing to do with a particular phylogenetic group. But the truth is that racism has moved to a microscopic, molecular, and internal level. Instead of the yellow armbands with a Star of David marking people, the markers are internal strands of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), which is divided into units called genes, which are unique to each of us.

Rather than using the word "People," or "Black," or "Blonde Haired" the words "genotype," "phylogenetic," and "cluster" are now used. Most people have the same genes/alleles, but differences/polymorphisms in the way the genetic sequences are organised. It is a language like any other, and like a language with a few basic letters and sounds, can be organised in many distinct ways. Thus, all of those with a shared allele sequence/polymorphism are a phylogenetic group, much the same way a person from a particular geographic region shares a distinct pronunciation and slang. Molecular genetics seeks to find the distinct polymorphisms for each phylogenetic group.

The language is highly suggestive of racism. The variations of sequence polymorphisms are called restriction length polymorphisms (RFLPs). The molecular biologists are busy trying to piece together these restriction polymorphisms in order to link them to particular phenotypes/families/people. When a restriction polymorphism is definitively linked to a particular trait, such as eye color, or disease it is called a restriction marker. It is claimed that identifying these "restriction markers" will help in diagnosing disease and in "isolating" genes, id. est., people.

This is exactly what went on in the first part of the 1900s. The strange science of racial purity flourished with the aid of universities and States. And the States did not merely want to rid the earth of a few diseased individuals, but also of those carrying supposedly tainted (restrictive) genetic markers. Germany and the U.S. (the U.S. was quieter, but no less avid) decided who carried the "restriction markers," which barred these people entry into society. Germany "isolated" the genes, the people in ghettos, IG Farben/Auschwitz, sanitariums, veterans homes, and hospitals.

One may believe they are safe because they are perfect -- don't drink, don't smoke, don't drink coffee, and don't eat the "wrong" foods. One may believe they are perfect because they go to church, don't waste energy, don't have the wrong skin color, vote for the correct political representatives, or whatever else. One may be perfect, but be carrying "restriction markers" all over within the secret little cells of their body.

What science doesn't tell us is that simply having a particular genetic sequence does not mean a person will die from it, or be an addict. There is such a thing as free choice, which we forget exists. Free choice is a genetic marker that each and everyone of us carries. It's the worst polymorphism of all to despots.

The direction that our wonderful science, which has been corrupted into a religion, is going is backwards. There will be no cure for cancer or other diseases. The scientists of Nazi Germany had a war on cancer, but the cure was death for millions. And in all these many, many years of scientific progress we have gotten no further than they. Our "cures" are exactly the same. Bans, blaming heredity, isolating the unwanted individuals. There will be no cure for cancer, only "therapies," which profit large corporations and the State.

There was not much cancer before the 1900s. But people have been drinking for thousands of years. People have been eating for thousands of years. People have been smoking for thousands of years, and hundreds in the Old World and Asia. People have ingested coffee for thousands of years. Why is it that a Japanese man may smoke and never get cancer, but an American man can't?

To admit the horrible truth would harm the giant monopolies and our governments who have committed crimes and made mistakes which they would rather not own up to. It is better to blame the individual for their cancer, blame their genetics and choices, better to call them "burdens" upon society than admit that there is more to cancer and its causes.

And now, that we have moved into the era of health care for all, this war on cancer, which is really a war on the individual will be ramped up. The large corporations and the State will place "restrictive markers" on as many "clusters" as they can because there is no way they will spend our money on us if they can help it. If an individual doesn't profit the State monopoly and Big Pharma, then they are a cancer and not worthy of life. Isolated. Banned.

And this is why 2nd and 3rd hand smoke were invented. There is barely a person alive that can say they have never been exposed to 2nd hand smoke, and 3rd hand smoke can be "caught" anywhere, from anyone. This creates the myth of the person who chooses to use tobacco as a virus, spreading cancer around like a flu. Thus, no matter what, the tobacco user will be the cause of all cancer, the scapegoat that must bear the sins of the people. And those who are caught anywhere near a tobacco user will be seen as carriers of the disease.

The harsh reality is that a tobacco user (or a coffee drinker or an alcoholic behind the wheel) is incapable of wiping out humanity the same way that Big Pharma and despotic states are. These people, if they ever do kill another, do it in dribs and drabs and feel extreme guilt for what they do. But large masses of "righteous" people kill large masses of innocents and feel no guilt. They tend to believe they are God's chosen and thus, have a command to kill. Somehow, the masses continually mistake Molech for God, and forget the story of Jesus and that it was a mob and the State that crucified Him.

It's easy to identify a person that smokes by sight and smell, much as if they were a group with a different skin color than the majority, or as if they were tattooed with a number. This makes them easy to hate and blame. No one cares because they're all poor and broken.

But the cause of cancer will not be eradicated by banning those who use tobacco. In fact, a new, but obvious group will have to be found, then another, and another. This will be the cure for our ignorance and will keep us distracted with hate and fear while feeling righteous and moral.

The truth is that cancer is a sad, sad disease and no one deserves to die of it or for it. It has many causes and most of them are linked to things we are unaware of, and nearly powerless over. Most causes of cancer can be attributed to our way of life the past hundred years, our addictions to things we have never considered addictions or dependencies, and issues that are too emotional to tackle.

In the 1950s and beyond, millions of Baby Boomers were given the life-saving polio vaccine which was grown on simian monkey kidneys which transferred a cancer-causing virus called SV-40 to those who received the vaccine. SV-40 lays dormant for many years until triggered for one reason or other, then may cause cancers of the soft tissues--lung cancer, skin cancer and others. SV-40 can be spread from one person to the next much like AIDs.

Many vaccines have been found to lead to cancer. A vaccine should be good, and they have stemmed many sicknesses, but there are often future ramifications which one does not find out until many years later.

Then there is radon, an invisible gas, which is in many homes. This too, causes lung cancer.

Exhaust from our automobiles contains many carcinogens.

Our jobs in certain industries which require exposure to chemicals and toxins may cause lung cancers.

Radiation exposure, such as via a full body scanner, or an X-ray machine can cause cancer.

Kissing someone with the HPV virus can cause cancer. In fact, all forms of warts are actually cancer viruses.

The use of immunosupressant drugs, such as are used by organ transplant patients, or by AIDs patients, or for arthritis leads to cancer.

Being born and living may lead to cancer and or death.

With the increased Chemical/Pharmaceutical push for genetically engineered grains cancer will increase even more. These genetically engineered foods usually contain an animal or human protein in them. Our bodies instinctively know when a foreign body has entered and this incites our immune system to be rid of it, the same way an organ transplant patient's body knows a foreign organ has been introduced into it.

Genetically engineered food will cause our immune systems to overreact, which will wear the body down, which will lead to more patients in the doctor's office asking for immunosupressents and allergy meds, which will lead to cancer.

Not only will genetically engineered crops harm our immunity, but they will cross breed with other crops and destroy them, putting small farmers out of business, giving the Chemical/Pharmaceutical corporations a monopoly over what we eat. The same corporate monopolies that are behind the smoking bans are also behind genetically engineered foods. They'll feed us from the cradle to the grave on their cancerous foods and their "therapies" for the sickness they have given us. But the tobacco users and others will reap the blame. And the people will be blamed for destroying the environment, while the genetically modified pollen spreads its disease to our land and farmers right under our noses.

We don't have to return to the stone age or eschew modern conveniences, but we must be more aware of what our modern and thoughtless addictions have led to. We are a nation of addicts. We think that a pill will solve our problems and that mixing unlike things, such as human with plant will give us health and nutrition. We think we can ban cancer by banning people.

It is nearly impossible to give up our lotions, foods, jobs, medicines, fertilizers, pesticides and cars. We don't have to, but we can find other ways, even if our friends and neighbors deride us and wonder if we are crazy. This author is going to try to the best of his ability to put his money where his mouth is, and also how to do without certain products. But time is running out. Once a group is banned, once a university's "pharmaceutical" grain crop sends its pollen out into the surrounding regions, once a cancer-causing virus contaminates a vaccine it is nearly too late to stop the spread of cancer upon our souls and society.

This is why I take a stand against tobacco bans. It seems that this one wall is what stands between everyone and complete monopoly over every aspect of our lives. Believe it or not, the tobacco companies devoted much time and money to combating the forces of Big Chemical and Big Pharma. According to the anti-tobacco propaganda, the tobacco companies saw the World Health Organization and the Big UN as their biggest threat, as their biggest "competition," and worked hard to keep them from implementing domination. We may never know exactly how important tobacco users and their money were in keeping America and the rest of the world free. And now, they are banned and hated by the very people they may have protected. Isn't that the way of the world.

Or, we will see how important and generous tobacco users were/are, but continue treading down the wrong road. Already, in my state, only a few short months after a smoking ban in the hospitality industry, the state has lost millions in revenue. The bars are having to lay off bartenders, most of whom are single mothers. In turn, these single mothers will lose homes, cars, nice clothes, money for their children's dance or sport activities, or tutoring, nights out with friends, etc, etc. In turn, this money may have flowed back to the fathers paying the child support. These single mothers will end up in government subsidised housing and on welfare, and the fathers will be punished by the State with fines, jail, confiscated driver's licences for not paying up. How does that save the tax payers money? A smoking ban effects the entire economy because the money doesn't merely stay in the bar or the casino. It goes out into the community, even benefiting those that hate tobacco users. Tobacco users can be highly generous and loving people, but not if their company isn't good enough for the community.

A ban on tobacco hurts our health in so many different ways. And Big Pharma Nicotine "therapy" will not save any of us in health costs because these products cause cancer, ulcers, diabetes, heart attack, brain death, and other wonders of medical madness.

I recently read a comment suggesting that the non profit status of churches be revoked to make up for lost revenue due to the tobacco bans. At the moment, this seems a plausible solution, as these groups (Christian, Jew, Muslim) quit being answerable to God by joining with the State and Big Pharma to push for the bans--at least where I live. There is no separation of Church, Corporation, and State. They're the same. They want our money to save the world, yet won't give anything back unless one sells their soul to them. And always, they blame illness upon some evil committed by the individual, thus claiming exemption from mercy or forgiveness.


The smoke of the saints. Good enough for God. Banned on earth.

image: Caravaggio, David and Goliath

Banning Peaceful Assembly for the Health of the Corporate State

"Yet unlike the bathhouse, which was semiprivate and enclosed, away from public view, the coffeehouse constantly offered itself as a spectacle, which, tempting and visible, beckoned to the surrounding markets and neighborhoods throughout the day light hours and into the night. The allure was powerful. Many religious observers were alarmed precisely because it diverted so much traffic from older areas of public congregation. In sixteenth-century Istanbul, they lamented, the mosques now stood empty, as worshippers--including many members of the religious establishment--whiled away their hours in the inviting precincts of the coffeehouse" (James Grehan, "Smoking and 'Early Modern' Sociability: The Great Tobacco Debate in the Ottoman Middle East (Seventeenth to Eighteenth Centuries)," American Historical Review, Vol.111, No.5, Dec. 2006)

James Grehan notes that the primary motivation for coffee and tobacco bans in the middle east of the Islamic Ottomans were the same as bans in our modern and enlightened scientifically Christian times: Fear of a power group losing its ability to dominate and disseminate information. And as in the past, these fears are sold to us under the guise of caring, health, and morals.

Grehan says there "were pervasive anxieties about shifts in consumption and sociability, which seemed to undermine long-standing social hierarchies. By the late sixteenth century, the Ottoman state.........had become concerned about possible blurrings of rank and distinction...."

According to Grehan, coffee and tobacco were "bringing together a diverse cross-section of Istanbul society." This is always a problem for those who like looking down on the rabble.

When different classes, levels of education and social status mix it threatens the false order of those who can only thrive in a society of fear. When diverse people are brought together in an unguided and unorganized manner they realize how interesting the world is and that those of disparate groups are human too. It makes it pretty difficult for despots to create hatred and fear of a group when the groups socialize together all of the time.

This Bard belongs to several segregated genetic groups. He has been shunned, spit upon, and called names. The Bard can no more quit being a member to his inherited genetic group than a Jew could in Nazi Germany, or a Black person on a hot night in 1920, or an American of Japanese descent after Pearl Harbor.

And even though mistreated because of his genetic inheritance, the Bard does not believe in mistreating or segregating or making experiments of those of different genetic inheritance than himself. This is evil to him. The Bard cannot espouse self-righteousness or hate of others when he is himself a sufferer of hatred. He cannot be a hypocrite in the name of religion, science, health, or morals.

James Grehan spends much time on the Muslim legal scholar 'Abd al-Ghani al-Nablusi (1641-1731), who was much revered in and after his time, but has fallen due to our modern "intolerant conservatism." Grehan says of al-Nabulsi:

"Beyond his efforts to build a solid defense for smoking, al-Nablusi had much broader complaints about anti-tobacco authors. He saw their arguments as growing out of unhealthy self-righteousness that clouded their judgment. In essence, they were simply imposing their prejudices on others by improperly citing a legal tradition that called on all believers 'to command the right and forbid the wrong.' Al-Nablusi did not dispute the validity of this doctrine, but asked whether anyone alive was fit to apply it" (emphasis added).

It seems that the coffeehouse, the tavern, the place of peaceful assembly plays a very similar role as Jesus does. This is why we see an increase in smoking bans, which lead to a closure of taverns, less sociability in the yuppy coffee bars, and binge drinking in the remaining youth bars. These public gathering places threaten the order of the arrogant who order the masses.

"Whenever you see a cloud rising out of the west, immediately you say, 'A shower is coming'; and so it is.
"And when you see the south wind blow, you say, 'There will be hot weather'; and there is.
"Hypocrites! You can discern the face of the sky and of the earth, but how is it you do not discern this time?" (Luke 12:54-56).

Keeping the Temple

The Bard has been feeling a bit rebellious and wondering if....

If the body is a temple, whose temple is it? Does it belong to the owner or to a chain of temples, like a fast food chain in which each temple is designed in nearly the same design as the place down the road and serves up the exact same frozen meat briquettes, "toasted" buns, rehydrated onion and shake mix?

If I, the inheritor of this temple own it and don't want to join a franchise, then I should be able to run things as I please, organizing the feast days, the alms giving, and requirements for entry into the Holy of Holies.

Who exactly has decided what the rules for my temple are? Who has said it should look a certain way and what rules it should follow and who has decided what foods, music, and people are permitted within its sacred walls?

Of course,very often the answer is that we're each to be part of the Judeo-Christian group and that God has set the rules and design and has told us how to design the building and how to operate it. The Bard doesn't dispute that God set the patterns out, but the Bard disputes that his temple must conform to a uniform human ideal, for the Bard has not been designed to conform to the uniform ideal, and when he has tried he finds himself a sad and dark temple full of false idols cluttering up his space. He finds himself spending too much time and money buying costumes and other acceptable regalia for the grand boredom of being preached at. And after that he has to prove his pockets are empty by pulling them out and placing the last bit of lint in the offering plate.

Once, when the Bard attended a great temple gathering and all the lint had been placed in the plate a great grey-blue lint cow appeared and we all bowed down to worship it. Moses asked the pastor in charge of the flock what had happened and the pastor said he had no idea. It didn't taste too well when we were forced to eat it. Lint doesn't melt in the mouth the same way that cotton candy does, and on the other end it reminds one of what an owl expectorates.

Of late there has been much talk about other people's temples. Females in leadership roles are even accusing their own beautiful daughters of being fat, somehow hoping that this motherly love will inspire the rest of us to look at all thin children and do the same. If the particular Great Mother I have in mind believes her children are fat, then each of us must be fat too. Perhaps, we've all been blind, imagining that what we see is thin when in reality it is fat. Or perhaps, we are being asked to conform to someone else's "reality."

Anyway, this zealous interest in other people's temples is getting carried away. Who cares? And whose business is it to care? Not mine, not yours. Well, it's somebody's and they must be planning on making a mint on accusing people of the sin of eating. Everyone eats. We're all dependent, addicted, and habituated to food. We're all guilty of the sin, and we all have gathered in little circles to pass the cake and cookies and get the giggles and mumble terms that addicts use, such as "Mmm. This is so good! Mmm. MMMM." And we've all displayed that strange sensation of rubbing our belly after Thanksgiving, or perhaps unbuttoned the top snap to let the pressure loose (a sign of a hardcore addict).

The ineffable state of New York wants a sin tax on carbonated beverages. According to these high priests of health, morals, and science this type of beverage is as dangerous as smoking, and alcohol. Somehow, when something is labelled a "sin" it makes it okay to tax it and ban it from privately owned temple use.

The Bard doesn't believe any state should make money from something if it's considered a sin. Why would those who don't agree with smoking, alcohol, and now pop want to benefit from the bad habits of others? The Bard doesn't believe in taking dirty money for his benefit. Of course, the bard doesn't believe that tobacco, alcohol, or pop are impure; but he doesn't believe the government should benefit from supposedly bad habits.

The Bard thinks that the problem of sin and habits would be eradicated if people were banned, rather than the things they ingest and do. Hitler called this the Final Solution. Of course, then the governments of our states would not have any funding for their programs, but then, they wouldn't need the money because the problems would all be solved, finally they would be effective.

Ideally, the Bard would like it if people not respectful of his temple would stop standing outside demanding their right to entry. He doesn't stand at their gates yelling and screaming about his rights to enter into their temples, or how their temple practices harm his temple practices.

If....if the body is a temple, then it is mine and it is holy. Stop desecrating it with heathen practices and idols, stop eating up my stores, or I may have to send for my temple-home's rightful master. Can I weave and unweave much longer? Beware of the beggar that returns for his Penelope, his Bride.

image: John William Waterhouse, Penelope and the Suitors (1912)

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).

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.

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

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.

COP15: Disdain for the Tree of Life

It was an article in The Copenhagen Post which first perked my interest in the big Un's Climate Change Conference (COP15).

When I see Beauty and merry-making banned I get suspicious. When I see the spirit of Puritanism and Piety rising like an angry flood across the green land and seeping like an acid beneath the doors of homes and hearts my senses quicken and a stiff ridge rises along the trunk of my spine, traveling the branches of my brain.

"[Christmas] is a religious holiday that has no place at a United Nations function, according to the Foreign Ministry's Svend Olling...." ("Christmas trees banned for climate summit," The Copenhagen Post, 4 Dec. 2009).

"'We have to remember that this is a UN conference and, as the centre then becomes UN territory, there can be no Christmas trees in the decor, because the UN wishes to maintain neutrality,' said Olling" ("Christmas trees").


Jadis, Scrooge, the Grinch, and Puritans don't like Christmas trees either. They prefer cold stone, frozen streams, continual Fimbulvetr, and never having to see evergreen life which defies winter's breath. They are afraid of Spring's warm breath; and large powerful men with wise white beards who keep lists, wear royal crimson, and bring gifts and drop coal upon those who need warming of their constricted hearts. They are afraid of an old one-eyed man sustained upon wine with his eight-legged steed, or his modern team of eight leaping and jingling reindeer.

COP15 claims to be a religious neutral zone, but the banning of decorated and glowing evergreens and observance of Christmas is a highly religious and fanatical act. The hatred of Christmas is rarely an atheist hatred, but always a religious fanatic hatred.


COP15 has very effectively displayed a fear, not only of The Great Flood, but also of The Live Tree. Within the Great White Stone Circle ("No Man's Land") there is barely a live twig across the desert. The few trees are in winter's sleep, and those planted previous to the great gathering are looked upon as inferior due to the fact that they were planted in a time when man believed nature had a pattern and could be guided by pattern.


The dislike of The Live Tree is also evident in the little movie produced for the opening ceremony, "Please help the world," in which the child instinctively clings to the lone and dead tree for protection from The Great Flood swirling beneath her.


The child-actor knows to cling to the tree, knows it should represent shelter from the storm, but in a windswept world where one has lost their Faith (the teddy bear) to the gaping chasm, and The Live Tree is reduced to a skeleton of dry kindling, there is no savior, no refuge from the storm. There is only crucifixion.

The world of COP15 is not one of benevolence or of hope, but of apocalypse, fear, and dark ignorance. It is a world of Deep Ecology, the deep ecology of hell and its laughing lies.

The world will look and feel exactly as the landscaping and the film depict it if the Frost Giants of Copenhagen have their way. They are pulling our tails.

Rather than pushing against the weight of the good people of the world, trying to get them into the dark barn, they are pulling tails with fear in order to get us to pull away from the discomfort and into the barn -- the very place we don't want to go.

The Live Tree represents all that this new group of religious fanatics cannot stand: Life, Knowledge, Protection, Birth, Connection to Heaven, Connection to Hell, Sacrifice, and Resurrection.


The Live Tree, the Christmas Tree is one of the most universal, most religiously neutral symbols inherited by man. Coupled with fire or light it is even more universal. COP15 wants this and ALL myth, ALL religions of the past desiccated. The only way to achieve this goal of obliterating these inherited "religious" symbols is to obliterate the blood in which these beliefs are stored.

Those who believe they will gain profit or save the earth by signing to the treaty will be signing in blood -- the blood of innocents, the blood of the children in their country.

Those who refrain their hand from signing the treaty will be those who have tasted of the fruit of knowledge, who desire the fruit of life, who hold to the ties of the wise elders, the courage of mythic heroes, and the divine patterns instilled in the earth upon which they know and love. Those who do not sign will stand with solid faces against the storm and they will shelter under The Great Tree. Those who do not sign will be like living trees spreading their branches over the children of their land.


images from top to bottom: Jesse Tree, Saint-Quentin Basilica, Aisne, France;
Woman With Flowers, Iran; Olive Tree; Flag of Iroquois Confederacy; detail of Crucifixion, Antonello da Messina; Yggdrasil, Oluf Olufsen Bagge, Prose Edda (1847); Happy Christmas, Viggo Johansen