A Guide To Jaco Van Dormael's Mr. Nobody

Jaco Van Dormael's Mr. Nobody is like a piece of great literature and needs to be "read" like one. This means that the viewer needs to have an ability to make connections with other literature and with their heart. If the reader is able only to make superficial connections they will come away with the impression that there is no ultimate meaning to life at the end of the movie.

Back in my university days it was very common for the students to forget that "Every great writer is a great deceiver" as well as a "storyteller, teacher, enchanter--but [that] it is the enchanter in him that predominates and makes him a major writer" (Vladimir Nabokov "How to be a Good Reader or Kindness to Authors").

And thus, I had to sit through many a class while my fellow students destroyed literature with their ignorance and cruelty. The youngest and most beautiful girls would swoon at Nabokov and Wallace Stevens and say it was so beautiful and wonderful, drooling sick and sugary syrup from their mouths, but never understanding exactly why the literature was beautiful. I once, heard a beautiful girl, accustomed to being thought intelligent in high school, tell the professor that she loved T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland because it was dreamy and had mermaids.

And then, there is the intellectual student. These are the ones with dour faces and black-rimmed glasses and mouths that know big words. These never understand anything and all great literature is nihilistic and nothing to them. They drone on, explaining why the literature was great -- because it means nothing and has no meaning (actually, they're too blind to know meaning when they run into it). These go on to power positions in politics or universities where they attempt steal the joy and meaning of learning and living from the rest of us.

These two types of "readers," the sugary girls and the educated idiots are bad readers and will not understand Mr. Nobody, but will shape nearly all opinion about it.

"the good reader is one who has imagination, memory, a dictionary, and some artistic sense"(Vladimir Nabokov "Kindness to Authors").

Here are a few connections I've noticed upon completing a first viewing. There must be much more:

Literature:
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
"Annabelle Lee" by Edgar Allen Poe
Lolita by Vladimir Nobokov
The Odyssey by Homer
Bible

Movies:
Groundhog Day with Bill Murry
It's a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart
The Matrix with Keanu Reeves
Dead Man with Johnny Depp
The Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland

Symbolism:
Water
Muses
Trains
Tunnels
Colors

And ultimately, these connections to the wider universe are only road markers, pointing us to the meaning of Jaco Van Dormael's Mr. Nobody, which is about the most important connection of all.

"Creativity Class," A New Oxymoron?

A few weeks ago Newsweek printed an article entitled "The Creativity Crisis" by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, which detailed the decline of creativity in America. I laughed my way through the article because one of the ideas for fixing this problem was "creativity training" in the classroom--Creativity Class.

If ever there was an oxymoron Creativity Class is one. So is Creativity Training.

"[A]merican teachers warn there's no room in the day for creativity class" (Bronson and Merryman). Actually, there's no room in the classroom, a structured and controlled and biased environment for any creativity, unless you're one of the lucky little children with parents willing to fight the ADHD label and the pharmaceutical monopoly's terrorism on brains. Nancy Reagan's Just Say No campaign needs to make a come back, this time to save children from mind-altering and damaging pharma fascism.

According to James C. Kaufman, quoted in the Newsweek article, "Creativity can be taught" (Bronson and Merryman). By who?

If creativity can be taught and learned within a classroom setting then why hasn't the State school system used some creative thinking to come up with better ways of dealing with children, other than labelling and drugging them? Obviously, there is no creativity amongst those operating the State school system, and to deal with their inability and laziness they have turned to drugs, blaming the victim and their parents.

And then, to contradict the first article, the following article, "Forget Brainstorming," also by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman tells the reader that "[P]eople generate more and better ideas separately than together," and "Don't tell someone to 'be creative,'" Hmm.

The closing paragraph of "The Creativity Crisis" shows how ignorant and unable to make sublime connections we have become with an insult upon the very thing that has inspired all great thinkers, inventors, artists, and scientists: the Muse at the well, sprinkling inspiration and love:

"Creativity has always been prized in American society, but it's never really been understood. While our creativity scores decline unchecked, the current national strategy for creativity consists of little more than praying to a Greek muse to drop by our houses. The problems we face now, and in the future, simply demand that we do more than just hope for inspiration to strike. Fortunately, the science can help: we know the steps to lead that elusive muse right to our doors."

And so, the great wells have been covered over while we continue un creatively to look to the gods in white lab coats to inject us with creativity, herd us into Creativity Class and subject us to yet another standardized assessment of who is creative and who is not.

Creativity is born of love, of freedom, and yearning. It cannot be synthesized by science, the State, or by pharmaceutical candies, pills, and patches.

"Now these two Kings and two Queens governed Narnia well, and long and happy was their reign. At first much of their time was spent in seeking out the remnants of the White Witch's army and destroying them, and indeed for a long time there would be news of evil things lurking in the wilder parts of the forest--a haunting here and a killing there, a glimpse of a werewolf one month and a rumor of a hag the next. But in the end all that foul brood was stamped out. And they made good laws and kept the peace and saved good trees from being unnecessarily cut down, and liberated young dwarfs and young satyrs from being sent to school, and generally stopped busybodies and interferers and encouraged ordinary people who wanted to live and let live" (C.S. Lewis, "The Hunting of the White Stag," The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, emphasis added).

Shakespeare's Retelling of an Old Tale: Romeo and Juliet

"When good manners shall lie in one or two men's hands, and they unwash't too, 'tis a foul thing" (Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, I.V)

"Marry, sir, 'tis an ill cook that cannot lick his
own fingers: therefore he that cannot lick his
fingers goes not with me" (Romeo and Juliet, IV.II)

I have finished reading William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet for the first time. For years I have deliberately avoided reading it due to its overly quoted sap. Lines such as "O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?"(II.I) have made it into something that cloys the senses.

But, of course, Romeo and Juliet is not at all the thing that the masses have made it into and the serving people always have something intelligent to say. In Romeo and Juliet the servants often let us know what they think about those, like our politicians and others who can cook up a feast to serve to others, but don't dare take a taste of it themselves.

And, of course, Romeo and Juliet is about love, love that knows no boundaries and defies earthly confines. A love that does not parade itself and is secret and gives no material gain to anyone. It is the story of Passover and Easter and of breaking Time's grip.

Shakespeare is always about Time and of a world most of us don't even know how to dream of. I have found it nearly impossible to understand Shakespeare until one has actually experienced a transformative or eye-opening time in one's life. Until one has actually lived the words of Shakespeare they cannot understand him on anything other than the superficial level.

And it is no wonder that Romeo and Juliet has been made into something cheap and vain. I never would have understood this play a few years ago. This is not merely a tale of two "star-cross'd" lovers or feuding families who would not approve of their marriage. This is about a love that most of us, even those that think they have been loved or in love, will never understand. I can think of only two comparable and secret love stories: Abraham and Sarah and that of Jesus and His Father.

image: Thisbe by John William Waterhouse

The Cell Phone, A Mindless Drug Addiction

About those cell phones. I don't have one. I'm the last person alive that doesn't have one. I'm young and somehow survive without a phone pestering, festering, and twitching in my pocket, or glowing in dark places.

I've found it nice not having a cell phone because I don't have to politely record the numbers of everyone I meet in a database, and it is nice to see the repulsed reactions when others can't have my number. For some odd reason they no longer want my number when I tell them it's a land line and I can't drag it around with me everywhere I go, thus preventing people from "following" me like digital balls and chains as I travel along my daily path.

Anyway, about those cell phones. When I see how imprisoned, addicted, inconsiderate and impolite they make people I become even more staunchly anti-cell phone.

The other night, while out and about on the town, catching a couple of traveling bands I encountered another dazed and inconsiderate cell phone user. It was a fairly slow night, as the smoking ban has destroyed life and the ability to shake a leg. I was doing my best to show some appreciation, standing/dancing up near the front of the stage. I turned around and right behind me was the glow of an unhinged phone, mesmerizing its owner. I couldn't believe it. I was as shocked as a non smoker in a non-smoking venue would have been if someone had lit up a cigarette, disregarding everyone else and their health. I wanted to swat that phone to the ground and tell them to stare at their cell phone somewhere else where they didn't infringe on others.

One does NOT stand near the front of the stage when a band has traveled all day to play for them. The only time that cell phone should come out is to take pictures of the event. But no, this person was standing there staring at their phone while the band could see them. It was a blatant insult, as if to say to the band, "You're so boring and terrible that I'd rather stand here and stare at my phone right in front of your face." Truly, I couldn't believe how inconsiderate and unappreciative this behavior appeared.

If a call must be taken or made, one really needs to treat their cell phone the exact same way a tobacco user treats tobacco use in certain environments. One should remove themselves to a polite location and use their cell phone where it will not appear rude, demean others, ignore them, or infringe on them.

Truly, the cell phone has become a kind of harassment device and mini prison, and people seem to enjoy this. One person I know met a girl last week-end. They don't even know each other, having spent only one evening out with friends. The girl has called and texted every single day since this meeting even though a date is scheduled for this next week-end. I asked my friend if they actually like this and think it normal, and doesn't it appear a bit desperate on the girl's part?

It never occurred to my friend that this was abnormal since everyone does it. I can't imagine what kind of girl thinks it's normal to text and call a guy every day, especially when they've only just met and there's nothing to fear, since a date is already a sure thing. And who wants to be with someone that harasses them every day after having met once? What kind of relationship would that be? It would be more akin to ownership, or possession, having a person constantly reminding another that they're checking on them because they "care" and are so obsessed, insecure, and boring that they have nothing better to do.

The cell phone is basically a monitoring device, a palm prison. It's an insecurity device. People use to go smoke a cigarette when they got nervous and insecure thoughts about another person that they couldn't be with at the moment. Now, people text and call to remind everyone else that they exist and can't stop thinking about them. How nice. People call to remind others of their existence, and they check their phones to remind themselves that someone cared enough about them to harass them that day. How nice and kind.

Parents use the cell phone to keep tabs on their kids and to make themselves feel safer about their kids because the kids will have a list of numbers to call and harass for help all day. It's a digital umbilical cord. The kids won't cut it because they're addicted and don't know any better. Mom and Dad use the cell phone as a tool of punishment, taking it away when the kid has misused it or gotten into trouble. And the kid is an addict, goes through withdrawal, can't live without knowing who has thought of them that day, what mindless gossip they've been left out of, etc. and begs for its return so that they can get their fix.

The cell phone is like any other addictive thing and should be used responsibly, not as a crutch for insecurity or to bother others. It's not a brain, it's not a soul, although people treat it this way. When lighting up your cell phone, please be considerate of those around you, lest you contaminate the air around you, souring people on your social inability. If smoke-free air is a right, then so is cell-phone free air. Take it outside and pace.

There are non-cell phone users like me that would like to take your cell phone and break in half like a cigarette.

Oh, and by the by, while you're staring at the glow of your security crutch, not socializing with anyone near you, we tobacco smokers are out in the rain socializing and meeting real physical people that we can touch and see. You can have your virtual love, we've got the real thing--even in the rain or in 40 degrees below zero. You've got your phone on a cold night while the tobacco users have each other.

Albert Jay Nock: The State of Conquest

"Here is the Golden Rule of sound citizenship, the first and greatest lesson in the study of politics: you get the same order of criminality from any State to which you give power to exercise it; and whatever power you give the State to do things for you carries with it the equivalent power to do things to you. A citizenry which has learned that one short lesson has but little left to learn" (Albert Jay Nock, "The Criminality of the State," The American Mercury, March, 1939)

I have discovered that American prophet, that typical hermit in the desert, Albert Jay Nock. Reading him makes one understand why the prophets of old were hunted down and hated by the rulers and the masses. What he says is not what we want to hear because it's what we know is true, but would rather not put into words. We would rather continue blaming everything outside of ourselves, and think betterment comes from without too. We would rather finger-point, and find innocent scapegoats to lay upon the alter. Even quoting Nock feels dangerous, which makes me wonder if free speech really exists.

The following quotes are all from Albert Jay Nock's Our Enemy, the State, first published in 1935, which can be read online at Mises.org:

"What we and our more nearly immediate descendants shall see is a steady progress in collectivism running off into military despotism of a severe type. Closer centralization; a steadily growing bureaucracy; State power and faith in State power increasing, social power and faith in social power diminishing; the State absorbing a continually larger proportion of the national income; production languishing, the State in consequence taking over one 'essential industry' after another, managing them with ever-increasing corruption, inefficiency and prodigality, and finally resorting to a system of forced labour. Then at some point in this progress, a collision of State interests, at least as general and as violent as that which occurred in 1914, will result in an industrial and financial dislocation too severe for the asthenic social structure to bear; and from this the State will be left to the 'rusty death of machinery,' and the casual anonymous forces of dissolution will be supreme" (206).

"[T]here is actually no such thing as a 'labour problem,' for no encroachment on the rights of either labour or capital can possibly take place until all natural resources within reach have been preempted. What we call the 'problem of the unemployed' is in no sense a problem, but a direct consequence of State-created monopoly" (107)

"expropriation must precede exploitation" (Nock).

"After the conquest and confiscation have been effected, and the State set up, its first concern is with the land. The State assumes the right of eminent domain over its territorial basis, whereby every landholder becomes in theory a tenant of the State" (104).

"This regime was established by a coup d'Etat of a new and unusual kind, practicable only in a rich country. It was effected, not by violence, like Louis-Napoleon's, or by terrorism, like Mussolini's, but by purchase. It therefore presents what might be called an American variant of the coup d'Etat. Our national legislature was not suppressed by force of arms, like the French Assembly in 1851, but was bought out of its functions with public money; and as appeared most conspicuously in the elections of November, 1934, the consolidation of the coup d'Etat was effected by the same means; corresponding functions in the smaller units were reduced under the personal control of the Executive" (11-12).

The following is interesting, because things have changed a bit:

"Whenever economic exploitation has been for any reason either impracticable or unprofitable, the State has never come into existence; the government has existed, but the State, never. The American hunting tribes, for example, whose organization so puzzled our observers, never formed a State, for there is no way to reduce a hunter to economic dependence and make him hunt for you. Conquest and confiscation were no doubt practicable, but no economic gain would be got by it, for confiscation would give the aggressors but little beyond what they already had; the most that could come of it would be the satisfaction of some sort of feud" (57-58).

In the case of the native peoples of America, the State did an interesting thing. It placed the people on confined pieces of land, nearly forcing them to become little states which they became attached to. Then, in this weakened and prone condition, resting after being chased and massacred across the countryside, the state came in with its religious and scientific arms to take the only thing the native wanderers had left: family.

The children, for their own good (!), were taken from their parents and boarded in institutions which could provide for the children's upbringing "better" than their old fashioned and ignorant parents. In these State and religious institutions they were removed from their history and health. In Canada, they are still excavating the bone yards of the children accidentally killed by the wonderfully caring and effective authorities, then secretly buried around the grounds until fairly recently.

What Nock neglects is that the State can confiscate more than material property. It can confiscate souls, hold them prisoner, making it very difficult for the owner to free it and realize that they are a person.

And here we are, not seeing that what happened to those beautiful little children born of weary parents is happening right here every day to those off of the reservation too. And every day, the parents willingly, unquestioningly, submissively drop their children off at the institution. Nock has some words about American education too, which I haven't read, although it should be interesting as he was not formally educated, which explains a bit about his unformal beliefs.

Anyway, Nock has me thinking and musing on a few things these days.

Albert Jay Nock's Word To The Remnants

"Isaiah's Job" by Albert Jay Nock, The Atlantic Monthly, 1936:

One evening last autumn, I sat long hours with a European acquaintance while he expounded a political-economic doctrine which seemed sound as a nut and in which I could find no defect. At the end, he said with great earnestness: "I have a mission to the masses. I feel that I am called to get the ear of the people. I shall devote the rest of my life to spreading my doctrine far and wide among the population. What do you think?"

An embarrassing question in any case, and doubly so under the circumstances, because my acquaintance is a very learned man, one of the three or four really first-class minds that Europe produced in his generation; and naturally I, as one of the unlearned, was inclined to regard his lightest word with reverence amounting to awe. Still, I reflected, even the greatest mind can not possibly know everything, and I was pretty sure he had not had my opportunities for observing the masses of mankind, and that therefore I probably knew them better than he did. So I mustered courage to say that he had no such mission and would do well to get the idea out of his head at once; he would find that the masses would not care two pins for his doctrine, and still less for himself, since in such circumstances the popular favourite is generally some Barabbas. I even went so far as to say (he is a Jew) that his idea seemed to show that he was not very well up on his own native literature. He smiled at my jest, and asked what I meant by it; and I referred him to the story of the prophet Isaiah.

It occurred to me then that this story is much worth recalling just now when so many wise men and soothsayers appear to be burdened with a message to the masses. Dr. Townsend has a message, Father Coughlin has one, Mr. Upton Sinclair, Mr. Lippmann, Mr. Chase and the planned economy brethren, Mr. Tugwell and the New Dealers, Mr. Smith and Liberty Leaguers – the list is endless. I can not remember a time when so many energumens were so variously proclaiming the Word to the multitude and telling them what they must do to be saved. This being so, it occurred to me, as I say, that the story of Isaiah might have something in it to steady and compose the human spirit until this tyranny of windiness is overpast. I shall paraphrase the story in our common speech, since it has to be pieced out from various sources; and inasmuch as respectable scholars have thought fit to put out a whole new version of the Bible in the American vernacular, I shall take shelter behind them, if need be, against the charge of dealing irreverently with the Sacred Scriptures.

The prophet's career began at the end of King Uzziah's reign, say about 740 B.C. This reign was uncommonly long, almost half a century, and apparently prosperous. It was one of those prosperous reigns, however – like the reign of Marcus Aurelius at Rome, or the administration of Eubulus at Athens, or of Mr. Coolidge at Washington – where at the end the prosperity suddenly peters out and things go by the board with a resounding crash.

In the year of Uzziah's death, the Lord commissioned the prophet to go out and warn the people of the wrath to come. "Tell them what a worthless lot they are." He said, "Tell them what is wrong, and why and what is going to happen unless they have a change of heart and straighten up. Don't mince matters. Make it clear that they are positively down to their last chance. Give it to them good and strong and keep on giving it to them. I suppose perhaps I ought to tell you," He added, "that it won't do any good. The official class and their intelligentsia will turn up their noses at you and the masses will not even listen. They will all keep on in their own ways until they carry everything down to destruction, and you will probably be lucky if you get out with your life."


Isaiah had been very willing to take on the job – in fact, he had asked for it – but the prospect put a new face on the situation. It raised the obvious question: Why, if all that were so – if the enterprise were to be a failure from the start – was there any sense in starting it? "Ah," the Lord said, "you do not get the point. There is a Remnant there that you know nothing about. They are obscure, unorganized, inarticulate, each one rubbing along as best he can. They need to be encouraged and braced up because when everything has gone completely to the dogs, they are the ones who will come back and build up a new society; and meanwhile, your preaching will reassure them and keep them hanging on. Your job is to take care of the Remnant, so be off now and set about it."

II

Apparently, then, if the Lord’s word is good for anything – I do not offer any opinion about that, – the only element in Judean society that was particularly worth bothering about was the Remnant. Isaiah seems finally to have got it through his head that this was the case; that nothing was to be expected from the masses, but that if anything substantial were ever to be done in Judea, the Remnant would have to do it. This is a very striking and suggestive idea; but before going on to explore it, we need to be quite clear about our terms. What do we mean by the masses, and what by the Remnant?

As the word masses is commonly used, it suggests agglomerations of poor and underprivileged people, labouring people, proletarians, and it means nothing like that; it means simply the majority. The mass-man is one who has neither the force of intellect to apprehend the principles issuing in what we know as the humane life, nor the force of character to adhere to those principles steadily and strictly as laws of conduct; and because such people make up the great and overwhelming majority of mankind, they are called collectively the masses. The line of differentiation between the masses and the Remnant is set invariably by quality, not by circumstance. The Remnant are those who by force of intellect are able to apprehend these principles, and by force of character are able, at least measurably, to cleave to them. The masses are those who are unable to do either.

The picture which Isaiah presents of the Judean masses is most unfavorable. In his view, the mass-man – be he high or be he lowly, rich or poor, prince or pauper – gets off very badly. He appears as not only weak-minded and weak-willed, but as by consequence knavish, arrogant, grasping, dissipated, unprincipled, unscrupulous. The mass-woman also gets off badly, as sharing all the mass-man’s untoward qualities, and contributing a few of her own in the way of vanity and laziness, extravagance and foible. The list of luxury-products that she patronized is interesting; it calls to mind the women’s page of a Sunday newspaper in 1928, or the display set forth in one of our professedly "smart" periodicals. In another place, Isaiah even recalls the affectations that we used to know by the name "flapper gait" and the "debutante slouch." It may be fair to discount Isaiah’s vivacity a little for prophetic fervour; after all, since his real job was not to convert the masses but to brace and reassure the Remnant, he probably felt that he might lay it on indiscriminately and as thick as he liked – in fact, that he was expected to do so. But even so, the Judean mass-man must have been a most objectionable individual, and the mass-woman utterly odious.


If the modern spirit, whatever that may be, is disinclined towards taking the Lord’s word at its face value (as I hear is the case), we may observe that Isaiah’s testimony to the character of the masses has strong collateral support from respectable Gentile authority. Plato lived into the administration of Eubulus, when Athens was at the peak of its jazz-and-paper era, and he speaks of the Athenian masses with all Isaiah’s fervency, even comparing them to a herd of ravenous wild beasts. Curiously, too, he applies Isaiah’s own word remnant to the worthier portion of Athenian society; "there is but a very small remnant," he says, of those who possess a saving force of intellect and force of character – too small, preciously as to Judea, to be of any avail against the ignorant and vicious preponderance of the masses.

But Isaiah was a preacher and Plato a philosopher; and we tend to regard preachers and philosophers rather as passive observers of the drama of life than as active participants. Hence in a matter of this kind their judgment might be suspected of being a little uncompromising, a little acrid, or as the French say, saugrenu. We may therefore bring forward another witness who was preeminently a man of affairs, and whose judgment can not lie under this suspicion. Marcus Aurelius was ruler of the greatest of empires, and in that capacity he not only had the Roman mass-man under observation, but he had him on his hands twenty-four hours a day for eighteen years. What he did not know about him was not worth knowing and what he thought of him is abundantly attested on almost every page of the little book of jottings which he scribbled offhand from day to day, and which he meant for no eye but his own ever to see.

This view of the masses is the one that we find prevailing at large among the ancient authorities whose writings have come down to us. In the eighteenth century, however, certain European philosophers spread the notion that the mass-man, in his natural state, is not at all the kind of person that earlier authorities made him out to be, but on the contrary, that he is a worthy object of interest. His untowardness is the effect of environment, an effect for which "society" is somehow responsible. If only his environment permitted him to live according to his lights, he would undoubtedly show himself to be quite a fellow; and the best way to secure a more favourable environment for him would be to let him arrange it for himself. The French Revolution acted powerfully as a springboard for this idea, projecting its influence in all directions throughout Europe.


On this side of the ocean a whole new continent stood ready for a large-scale experiment with this theory. It afforded every conceivable resource whereby the masses might develop a civilization made in their own likeness and after their own image. There was no force of tradition to disturb them in their preponderance, or to check them in a thoroughgoing disparagement of the Remnant. Immense natural wealth, unquestioned predominance, virtual isolation, freedom from external interference and the fear of it, and, finally, a century and a half of time – such are the advantages which the mass-man has had in bringing forth a civilization which should set the earlier preachers and philosophers at naught in their belief that nothing substantial can be expected from the masses, but only from the Remnant.

His success is unimpressive. On the evidence so far presented one must say, I think, that the mass-man’s conception of what life has to offer, and his choice of what to ask from life, seem now to be pretty well what they were in the times of Isaiah and Plato; and so too seem the catastrophic social conflicts and convulsions in which his views of life and his demands on life involve him. I do not wish to dwell on this, however, but merely to observe that the monstrously inflated importance of the masses has apparently put all thought of a possible mission to the Remnant out of the modern prophet’s head. This is obviously quite as it should be, provided that the earlier preachers and philosophers were actually wrong, and that all final hope of the human race is actually centred in the masses. If, on the other hand, it should turn out that the Lord and Isaiah and Plato and Marcus Aurelius were right in their estimate of the relative social value of the masses and the Remnant, the case is somewhat different. Moreover, since with everything in their favour the masses have so far given such an extremely discouraging account of themselves, it would seem that the question at issue between these two bodies of opinion might most profitably be reopened.

III

But without following up this suggestion, I wish only, as I said, to remark the fact that as things now stand Isaiah's job seems rather to go begging. Everyone with a message nowadays is, like my venerable European friend, eager to take it to the masses. His first, last and only thought is of mass-acceptance and mass-approval. His great care is to put his doctrine in such shape as will capture the masses' attention and interest. This attitude towards the masses is so exclusive, so devout, that one is reminded of the troglodytic monster described by Plato, and the assiduous crowd at the entrance to its cave, trying obsequiously to placate it and win its favour, trying to interpret its inarticulate noises, trying to find out what it wants, and eagerly offering it all sorts of things that they think might strike its fancy.


The main trouble with all this is its reaction upon the mission itself. It necessitates an opportunist sophistication of one's doctrine, which profoundly alters its character and reduces it to a mere placebo. If, say, you are a preacher, you wish to attract as large a congregation as you can, which means an appeal to the masses; and this, in turn, means adapting the terms of your message to the order of intellect and character that the masses exhibit. If you are an educator, say with a college on your hands, you wish to get as many students as possible, and you whittle down your requirements accordingly. If a writer, you aim at getting many readers; if a publisher, many purchasers; if a philosopher, many disciples; if a reformer, many converts; if a musician, many auditors; and so on. But as we see on all sides, in the realization of these several desires, the prophetic message is so heavily adulterated with trivialities, in every instance, that its effect on the masses is merely to harden them in their sins. Meanwhile, the Remnant, aware of this adulteration and of the desires that prompt it, turn their backs on the prophet and will have nothing to do with him or his message.

Isaiah, on the other hand, worked under no such disabilities. He preached to the masses only in the sense that he preached publicly. Anyone who liked might listen; anyone who liked might pass by. He knew that the Remnant would listen; and knowing also that nothing was to be expected of the masses under any circumstances, he made no specific appeal to them, did not accommodate his message to their measure in any way, and did not care two straws whether they heeded it or not. As a modern publisher might put it, he was not worrying about circulation or about advertising. Hence, with all such obsessions quite out of the way, he was in a position to do his level best, without fear or favour, and answerable only to his august Boss.

If a prophet were not too particular about making money out of his mission or getting a dubious sort of notoriety out of it, the foregoing considerations would lead one to say that serving the Remnant looks like a good job. An assignment that you can really put your back into, and do your best without thinking about results, is a real job; whereas serving the masses is at best only half a job, considering the inexorable conditions that the masses impose upon their servants. They ask you to give them what they want, they insist upon it, and will take nothing else; and following their whims, their irrational changes of fancy, their hot and cold fits, is a tedious business, to say nothing of the fact that what they want at any time makes very little call on one’s resources of prophesy. The Remnant, on the other hand, want only the best you have, whatever that may be. Give them that, and they are satisfied; you have nothing more to worry about. The prophet of the American masses must aim consciously at the lowest common denominator of intellect, taste and character among 120,000,000 people; and this is a distressing task. The prophet of the Remnant, on the contrary, is in the enviable position of Papa Haydn in the household of Prince Esterhazy. All Haydn had to do was keep forking out the very best music he knew how to produce, knowing it would be understood and appreciated by those for whom he produced it, and caring not a button what anyone else thought of it; and that makes a good job.


In a sense, nevertheless, as I have said, it is not a rewarding job. If you can tough the fancy of the masses, and have the sagacity to keep always one jump ahead of their vagaries and vacillations, you can get good returns in money from serving the masses, and good returns also in a mouth-to-ear type of notoriety:

Digito monstrari et dicier, Hic est!

We all know innumerable politicians, journalists, dramatists, novelists and the like, who have done extremely well by themselves in these ways. Taking care of the Remnant, on the contrary, holds little promise of any such rewards. A prophet of the Remnant will not grow purse-proud on the financial returns from his work, nor is it likely that he will get any great renown out of it. Isaiah’s case was exceptional to this second rule, and there are others, but not many.

It may be thought, then, that while taking care of the Remnant is no doubt a good job, it is not an especially interesting job because it is as a rule so poorly paid. I have my doubts about this. There are other compensations to be got out of a job besides money and notoriety, and some of them seem substantial enough to be attractive. Many jobs which do not pay well are yet profoundly interesting, as, for instance, the job of research student in the sciences is said to be; and the job of looking after the Remnant seems to me, as I have surveyed it for many years from my seat in the grandstand, to be as interesting as any that can be found in the world.

IV

What chiefly makes it so, I think, is that in any given society the Remnant are always so largely an unknown quantity. You do not know, and will never know, more than two things about them. You can be sure of those – dead sure, as our phrase is – but you will never be able to make even a respectable guess at anything else. You do not know, and will never know, who the Remnant are, nor what they are doing or will do. Two things you do know, and no more: First, that they exist; second, that they will find you. Except for these two certainties, working for the Remnant means working in impenetrable darkness; and this, I should say, is just the condition calculated most effectively to pique the interest of any prophet who is properly gifted with the imagination, insight and intellectual curiosity necessary to a successful pursuit of his trade.

The fascination and the despair of the historian, as he looks back upon Isaiah's Jewry, upon Plato's Athens, or upon Rome of the Antonines, is the hope of discovering and laying bare the "substratum of right-thinking and well-doing" which he knows must have existed somewhere in those societies because no kind of collective life can possibly go on without it. He finds tantalizing intimations of it here and there in many places, as in the Greek Anthology, in the scrapbook of Aulus Gellius, in the poems of Ausonius, and in the brief and touching tribute, Bene merenti, bestowed upon the unknown occupants of Roman tombs. But these are vague and fragmentary; they lead him nowhere in his search for some kind of measure on this substratum, but merely testify to what he already knew a priori – that the substratum did somewhere exist. Where it was, how substantial it was, what its power of self-assertion and resistance was – of all this they tell him nothing.

Similarly, when the historian of two thousand years hence, or two hundred years, looks over the available testimony to the quality of our civilization and tries to get any kind of clear, competent evidence concerning the substratum of right-thinking and well-doing which he knows must have been here, he will have a devil of a time finding it. When he has assembled all he can and has made even a minimum allowance for speciousness, vagueness, and confusion of motive, he will sadly acknowledge that his net result is simply nothing. A Remnant were here, building a substratum like coral insects; so much he knows, but he will find nothing to put him on the track of who and where and how many they were and what their work was like.

Concerning all this, too, the prophet of the present knows precisely as much and as little as the historian of the future; and that, I repeat, is what makes his job seem to me so profoundly interesting. One of the most suggestive episodes recounted in the Bible is that of a prophet's attempt – the only attempt of the kind on the record, I believe – to count up the Remnant. Elijah had fled from persecution into the desert, where the Lord presently overhauled him and asked what he was doing so far away from his job. He said that he was running away, not because he was a coward, but because all the Remnant had been killed off except himself. He had got away only by the skin of his teeth, and, he being now all the Remnant there was, if he were killed the True Faith would go flat. The Lord replied that he need not worry about that, for even without him the True Faith could probably manage to squeeze along somehow if it had to; "and as for your figures on the Remnant," He said, "I don't mind telling you that there are seven thousand of them back there in Israel whom it seems you have not heard of, but you may take My word for it that there they are."

At that time, probably the population of Israel could not run to much more than a million or so; and a Remnant of seven thousand out of a million is a highly encouraging percentage for any prophet. With seven thousand of the boys on his side, there was no great reason for Elijah to feel lonesome; and incidentally, that would be something for the modern prophet of the Remnant to think of when he has a touch of the blues. But the main point is that if Elijah the Prophet could not make a closer guess on the number of the Remnant than he made when he missed it by seven thousand, anyone else who tackled the problem would only waste his time.

The other certainty which the prophet of the Remnant may always have is that the Remnant will find him. He may rely on that with absolute assurance. They will find him without his doing anything about it; in fact, if he tries to do anything about it, he is pretty sure to put them off. He does not need to advertise for them nor resort to any schemes of publicity to get their attention. If he is a preacher or a public speaker, for example, he may be quite indifferent to going on show at receptions, getting his picture printed in the newspapers, or furnishing autobiographical material for publication on the side of "human interest." If a writer, he need not make a point of attending any pink teas, autographing books at wholesale, nor entering into any specious freemasonry with reviewers. All this and much more of the same order lies in the regular and necessary routine laid down for the prophet of the masses; it is, and must be, part of the great general technique of getting the mass-man's ear – or as our vigorous and excellent publicist, Mr. H. L. Mencken, puts it, the technique of boob-bumping. The prophet of the Remnant is not bound to this technique. He may be quite sure that the Remnant will make their own way to him without any adventitious aids; and not only so, but if they find him employing any such aids, as I said, it is ten to one that they will smell a rat in them and will sheer off.

The certainty that the Remnant will find him, however, leaves the prophet as much in the dark as ever, as helpless as ever in the matter of putting any estimate of any kind upon the Remnant; for, as appears in the case of Elijah, he remains ignorant of who they are that have found him or where they are or how many. They did not write in and tell him about it, after the manner of those who admire the vedettes of Hollywood, nor yet do they seek him out and attach themselves to his person. They are not that kind. They take his message much as drivers take the directions on a roadside signboard – that is, with very little thought about the signboard, beyond being gratefully glad that it happened to be there, but with every thought about the directions.

This impersonal attitude of the Remnant wonderfully enhances the interest of the imaginative prophet's job. Once in a while, just about often enough to keep his intellectual curiosity in good working order, he will quite accidentally come upon some distinct reflection of his own message in an unsuspected quarter. This enables him to entertain himself in his leisure moments with agreeable speculations about the course his message may have taken in reaching that particular quarter, and about what came of it after it got there. Most interesting of all are those instances, if one could only run them down (but one may always speculate about them), where the recipient himself no longer knows where nor when nor from whom he got the message – or even where, as sometimes happens, he has forgotten that he got it anywhere and imagines that it is all a self-sprung idea of his own.

Such instances as these are probably not infrequent, for, without presuming to enroll ourselves among the Remnant, we can all no doubt remember having found ourselves suddenly under the influence of an idea, the source of which we cannot possibly identify. "It came to us afterward," as we say; that is, we are aware of it only after it has shot up full-grown in our minds, leaving us quite ignorant of how and when and by what agency it was planted there and left to germinate. It seems highly probable that the prophet's message often takes some such course with the Remnant.

If, for example, you are a writer or a speaker or a preacher, you put forth an idea which lodges in the Unbewußtsein of a casual member of the Remnant and sticks fast there. For some time it is inert; then it begins to fret and fester until presently it invades the man's conscious mind and, as one might say, corrupts it. Meanwhile, he has quite forgotten how he came by the idea in the first instance, and even perhaps thinks he has invented it; and in those circumstances, the most interesting thing of all is that you never know what the pressure of that idea will make him do.

For these reasons it appears to me that Isaiah’s job is not only good but also extremely interesting; and especially so at the present time when nobody is doing it. If I were young and had the notion of embarking in the prophetical line, I would certainly take up this branch of the business; and therefore I have no hesitation about recommending it as a career for anyone in that position. It offers an open field, with no competition; our civilization so completely neglects and disallows the Remnant that anyone going in with an eye single to their service might pretty well count on getting all the trade there is.

Even assuming that there is some social salvage to be screened out of the masses, even assuming that the testimony of history to their social value is a little too sweeping, that it depresses hopelessness a little too far, one must yet perceive, I think, that the masses have prophets enough and to spare. Even admitting that in the teeth of history that hope of the human race may not be quite exclusively centred in the Remnant, one must perceive that they have social value enough to entitle them to some measure of prophetic encouragement and consolation, and that our civilization allows them none whatever. Every prophetic voice is addressed to the masses, and to them alone; the voice of the pulpit, the voice of education, the voice of politics, of literature, drama, journalism – all these are directed towards the masses exclusively, and they marshal the masses in the way that they are going.

One might suggest, therefore, that aspiring prophetical talent may well turn to another field. Sat patriae Priamoque datum – whatever obligation of the kind may be due the masses is already monstrously overpaid. So long as the masses are taking up the tabernacle of Moloch and Chiun, their images, and following the star of their god Buncombe, they will have no lack of prophets to point the way that leadeth to the More Abundant Life; and hence a few of those who feel the prophetic afflatus might do better to apply themselves to serving the Remnant. It is a good job, an interesting job, much more interesting than serving the masses; and moreover it is the only job in our whole civilization, as far as I know, that offers a virgin field.

Swimming Against the Current

Here are some snippets from a June 5, 1939 LIFE prediction of life in 1960, inspired by the New York World's Fair and General Motor's "Futurama" display:

"When Americans of 1960 take their two-month vacations, they drive to the great parklands on giant express highways. A two-way skein consists of four 50-m.p.h. lanes on each of the outer edges; two pairs of 75-m.p.h. lanes in the center, two lanes for 100m-m.p.h. express traffic. Cars change from lane to lane at specified intervals, on signal from spaced control towers which can stop and start all traffic by radio. Being out of its driver's control, each car is safe against accident....

".....Off the highway, the driver dawdles again at his own speed and risk."

"The highways skirt the great cities. But the happiest people live in one-factory farm-villages producing one small industrial item and their own farm produce. Strip planting protects the valley fields against erosion. The land is really greener than it was in 1939. Federal laws forbid the wanton cutting of wooded hillsides."

"Cures for cancer and infantile paralysis have extended man's life span and his wife's skin is still perfect at the age of 75."

"Electronic microscopes literally see everything."

"On every front America in 1960 knows more about unleashing the best energies in its citizens. Nearly everyone is a high-school graduate. The talented get the best education in the world. More people are interested in life, the world, themselves and in making a better world. Politics and emotion still slow progress. But these obstructions are treated with dwindling patience in 1960."

I wonder why they were so sure that America would change so quickly in 21 years from what it was in 1939? Was this sheer optimism or a plan in the works? And what made these strange people so sure that such a monotone and boring collective would actually achieve a cure for cancer? As long as people are confined to "happy" farm collectives, and only the "talented" get education, and all traffic is controlled, and emotionless automatons are the norm there will be no cure for cancer.

Curing cancer requires that the parts of the brain intimately linked to emotion are fully operational and creative. Curing cancer requires an unleashing of individuality and freedom, for this is how it will be fought within the body's systems.

I think, we can see a bit how cancer operates on a daily basis in our world. It seems to start small and grow when a population doesn't recognize it as a threat, when individuals are prohibited from defending themselves and kept ignorant. The cancer grows and attacks a weak organ, such as another company or group. It gets the body to attack the weak organ too. Then the energy, or money is sucked from the company or group of people in the form of a settlement or other form. This energy is then given to the cancer to feed upon, thus making it increase in power and allowing it to spread into other systems until it is eating up the body and too late to fight. The host dies, which then kills the cancer because there remains nothing to feed it.

It is very difficult and bloody when a cancer has grown so large that the entire body must unite to fight against it. But if each individual cell were given power and knowledge, it, along with its immediate neighbors could stall or destroy the cancer before it grew and attacked a large organ. This little battle would barely even be noticed and not lead to blood and death.

A completely unified and controlled highway system as envisioned in 1939 is one also susceptible to disaster. Perhaps, it is safer, but it is not free or pleasurable. It also is like pushing a population of handicapped drivers down the road. They forget how to use their muscles and atrophy from lack of use.

Ask a person in a wheel chair if they would rather be pushed around the rest of their life, have doors opened for them, and elevators lift them; or walk even if it meant tripping once in awhile, stubbing their toes, and being called bow legged. Ask the person in the wheel chair if they'd rather be able to ride a bike even if it meant risking that nasty bar in the crotch once in awhile. Chances are they'd laugh and say all those risks are worth freedom and independence. They may cry and say, "Give me the pain. I'll love it because I'm free, I'm standing on these legs, I'm running, and I can carry another if I get the chance."

How does an individual stop to help another on a controlled system that won't let them have that freedom? Doesn't this create a system of people who ignore others because they assume the authorities, Who Ever's In Charge, will take care of the needy? It's an unsafe system that controls our every motion. How do we know the so called higher powers (or powers for hire) will see the problem or that they will have compassion? And how much more will it cost us to pay for this controlling higher power in comparison to what it would have cost a single private individual to be compassionate?

Rather than uniting in giant power groups, rather than driving upon a controlled highway, it would be better for people to get off onto the country roads and dawdle at one's own risk and safety. A giant-controlled highway or social movement is controlled by exterior guides who may not steer us in the correct directions, who may be deceived and deceiving under the guise of safety and public health.

Giant movements do not bring about change, but more of the same. England's Protestants overthrew their monarch for another form of tyranny. Russia's Bolshevik, and France's Revolution were also a despot's dream. The real power is not in confined and controlled power groups who yell and vociferate about morals and speak in us-against-them terms. The real power is when each person as an individual chooses to do the right thing, irregardless of the group, irregardless of the time's moral, political, religious, and scientific values.

A school of fish is netted as a group. A single fish must be caught one at a time. It's quite labor intensive and time consuming for a fisherman to catch every single fish in the pool or in the stream. It's more labor intensive for evil to catch people when they're not in a group to be netted, but must be caught one at a time, and outsmarted with baits and flies. If individuals cannot stand alone, cannot act on their own, then they cannot stand or act as a group either. A group of unwhole and helpless people is a group of mental cripples trampling over town and country, hopped up on false righteousness.

image: Via Appia, Rome, Italy, Paul Vlaar

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.

Christian Temples Ban God's Smoke and Fat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

image: Rembrandt, The Prodigal Son Returns

Trijicon and Tefillin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ignorance is not bliss anymore. It's hell.

image: Amelia Earhart

At Least We'll Be Elegantly Destitute

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Breathe of Life

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being (Genesis 2:7)

And this is the moment carbon dioxide (CO2) is first expelled into the perfect earth, the moment the glaciers begin melting and polar bears begin floating on stray islands of ice.

There is a bit of folk wisdom that says talking to a plant will make it grow faster. Most likely, it is not so much the vibrations of speech which the plant loves, but the breathe which contains CO2, not to mention one who talks to a plant is also attentive to its needs.

But it has been agreed upon by supposedly educated and well-meaning adults in positions of power that CO2 is now a toxin which must be condemned.

It is difficult for me to comprehend the logic. How is it that the world must unite to protect plant and animal life from irresponsible human encroachment and use, but also claim that the very thing plants rely on for energy is now dangerous?

If plants do not get enough light, water, or CO2 they don't grow. And if plants don't grow animals die. Polar bears will die without herbivores to chew on, not to mention that plants expel oxygen as a "waste" product, which is what humans and animals breathe.

Is it possible that what is really meant by lowering CO2 emissions is the death of all that breathes?

There does seem to be an arrogance forming in the ponds of "No Man's Land," in the Great White Circle around Bella Center in Copenhagen where the big UN is meeting for the Climate Change Conference (COP15).

It seems, judging from the three plastic-lined ponds in the Great White Circle of rocks, rocks, and more rocks at Bella Center's entrance that the breathe of life will only be blowing upon the pond that symbolizes those chosen few meeting inside and the air they will be huffing.

There are three lonely ponds erected in the landscape. One pond is full of water and leaves which are in various stages of decay, which most likely represents the humous pile of history and lives used as compost for the great one's gardens.

There is another plastic-lined pool which has a cloud made of 1800 metres of recycled water spewing forth into it. This represents the daily Dane (Flemming Rafn Thomsen, Head of Design, SLA).

And then there is the special pond, full of white chalk stones, which will be the one that catches the wind, the spirit of inspiration, causing its surface to froth, and turn "milky."

I suppose, that those not part of the compost pond may be symbolized by the Great White Circle of rocks.

It is not clear as to how those gathered at COP15 will get the breathe of life/inspiration blown upon them if no religion is allowed. Perhaps, there is a new pantheon of gods being developed, from which the breathe will be gotten. Perhaps, they think to make themselves gods and demi-gods, giving birth to a new dawn, a new Olympus, an new order.

Vanity of vanities...All is vanity

The New Folk Music Movement

Rap is dying. Country is dying. Folk music will rise. The pendulum swings.

The Bard doesn't often make predictions about pop culture, but this is barely a prediction. I am only observing obvious fact.

At this time rap is sooo old, so worn out, so repetitious, so overwhelmed with electronic call and answer, so numbing. It's hanging on, but like country music it began dying about the same time and for the same reasons: Boobs, bling, beer bashes, and blondes belting out boyfriend songs for "tweens." And like a 15 year old girl getting drunk on wine coolers, too much of a sickly sweet drink can cause a horrific reaction. Rap and country are pink and blue drinks with minty and sugary flavors sucked through a skinny straw. There's only so much one can take before they decide to go back to the beer and whiskey, no straw.

The time is here, upon us. I can smell it in the air like unbathed pits and stinky feet in leather sandals. The time will strike, calling the unwashed masses to the socialist preacher with the guitar and plaid shirt. The masses will feel enlightened, enervated, intelligent, and ready to create a global utopia. They will attempt sustainable living, and try to halt time's rapidly increasing speed. They will use their weight to hold the pendulum back, strum-strumming, hum-humming slower.

Yes, Rap and Country will survive, but as arms of the folk music movement. They will adopt a bohemian flair.

There will be folk music everywhere, beckoning, beckoning to battle. Unlike the folk music of the past, which was mainly Marxist, this time we will see anti-Marxist folk music as well.

Warning! Stop your ears! Remember Odysseus and his crew when they had to pass by the sirens. He had his crew mates stop their ears with wax, and securely tie him to the mast so that he could not give into temptation when he heard the sirens singing the folk music. Unlike rap and country, folk music's goal is to seduce one into action through emotion and preaching.

Rap was good before electronic and materialistic influences strangled it, making it into a tool for numbing and dumbing club goers and kids hooked on cigarettes, I mean cell phones (same difference). It served the pop culture controller's purposes for a time, as did country, music, which from a Marxist point of view would be ideologically identical to rap.

But now, is the time to activate the mind-numbed ones, and the switch that will do the trick is folk music. Stop your ears, unless you like being preached at and told what to believe by a sweet voice. Don't jump in after the sirens, or death will waste you. Time can't be stopped, it's not sustainable.

Oh, yeah, and folk music is "green" because it doesn't generally require electricity to play the instruments. It's eco-friendly music! Man, I love sustainability.

image: Whistler