Republican Agenda

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Flies of the Lords

What? Yeah, so I'm naked with a giant sleeping fly tied to my back. Of course I'm bent over! Yes, I know walking this way isn't good for my back! Have you ever walked around with a giant sleeping fly tied to your back with ropes? No? Then shut the fuck up. If I walked upright the fucking thing would wake up. Have you ever had a giant fly buzzing its wings while tied to your back? No? Well, bully for you. I have and it hurts like the mother Bejeebus. Scary as all fuck out, too. The noise, dear God, the noise!

Why am I naked with a giant fly tied to my back? Would it surprise you if I told you that's not a question I want to answer? I know you want to know. I would, too. But if you knew what I knew you'd shut the fuck up about that and ask me if I wanted some water. Yes, damnit, some water! Do you know how long I've been walking like this? I don't know, either. Longer than you've been alive, I'll say that. Is it true? What the fuck kind of question is that?

Look, I am an American from the future. I've been sent back to let you know what's coming. Not so you'll be able to change the future, but so the rulers of the future can have the thrill of scaring you shitless. They've gotten bored scaring, imprisoning, humiliating, and torturing us. We've been scared so long it's not possible to scare us any more. But you, it's still easy to scare you so they sent me back to your time to let you know how bad it's going to be for you. Yes, all of you. They're not going to let you die. No one dies in the future. That's the hell of it.

These aren't my words. They are in the sense that I've been programmed to say them--I'm human, not a computer or a robot or an android. I've been programmed through techniques you will suffer through yourselves some day. I don't have a choice. Even when I say "I" the identification is meaningless except for storytelling purposes and to account for your naive beliefs in individuality and personhood. You are already part of the hive -- you always have been -- but you haven't been aware of it since the dawn of civilization. You were granted a dream life that, thus far, has lasted a few minutes. The past lives you believed you lived? Those were embedded thoughts from seconds ago. It's more complicated than you can imagine, especially since you are incapable of imagining anything -- none of your referents are real!

Let me tell you what's been happening and what will happen. I'll tell you in the form of a story, a third-person story. It's a story about me, insofar as there is a me, but it will make more sense to you if I tell it through a third-person narrative. You think a little better that way, most of you. Not all of you. Hell, those of you who are dyslexic understand it completely. Well, you would have if you hadn't been brain-washed to believe you were the ones reading things wrong by those who really are reading things wrong. That was by design; the rulers had to figure out how to keep those who could understand from, well, understanding.

See, everyone's been reading everything wrong. It's not Lord of the Flies; it's Flies of the Lords! What the hell do you think I'm carrying on my back! Why would I, a man, succumb willingly to carrying a giant sleeping fly on my back? Because I serve the Lords and this fly on my back is but one of the billions of flies of the Lords. There are billions of men and women like myself carrying flies like this, hunched over so as not to wake the violently buzzing giants. We cross deserts and mountains, swim lakes and walk across the hot ashes of fires, all to deliver flies from hills of dung to the Lords spread around the edges of the worlds, walking through portals that no man or woman was made to walk. We do not begin transporting flies when they are fully grown as the one on my back is; no, we tie the larvae to one another's backs then go on our way.

It's easy at first. The larvae squirm, yes, and it feels grotesque, sure, but it's okay to walk upright. But as they grow, feeding on our fat as we walk, they become adults. The first time I felt the stinging pain of the wings buzzing I fell to the ground. If the fly is tied on wrong then it will be face down, turned toward the back, and it will chew on the spine, the neck, the head. Death comes too slowly ... especially since there is no death. A thousand years could be spent with a giant fly gnawing on a man's body. Then, maybe, someone or something will discover the woman, escort the fly to the Lords and enslave him, use her to flavor soups or to hold down papers on a large desk to keep them from blowing away when the window is open.

Most of the time the maggots are fastened correctly, as mine has been. The giant flies sleep when upside down. That's why I walk this way, why we all walk this way. This, though, is not the story I will tell you. That is a third-person narrative. I will let you know when that story begins. First, I have to help you understand how fucked up you are. The dyslexia. That's one issue, but not the only issue. But there's more to it. I mentioned the Flies of the Lords. Yes, well, there are many other book titles you've mangled. The reason that is important is because you have gotten fiction and nonfiction backwards. You've been thinking a biography of Abraham Lincoln is somehow related to a real-world truth; no. It was Lincoln Abraham, anyway, but that's not all that important. You believed Lincoln was an important figure in history, the emancipator of slaves; no, he was the subject of a children's story about the enslavement of emancipators.

Literature contains everything that was, is, and will be. What you call science fiction is what has already happened; you've lived through those things. You don't remember because you've been living in the short dream you believe has been going on since the Big Bang (or God's creation of the universe or -- quite a lot of other bullshit). Now that is fiction. Realism is abstraction; abstraction is hyperreal. Surrealism is super-realism; absurdity is "things as they are." Reality is absurdity -- you would think that would be obvious! Ha! Dick Cheney? Clearly a fictional representation of the very real Darth Vader. The hobbits from Rings of the Lords -- oh, yes, you know it as Lord of the Rings -- they are you. Some of you.

But if you really want to find out how things are now -- beyond the dream life you've been living for only a matter of minutes -- read Kafka, Dostoevksy, Burroughs, Murakami, Garcia Marquez, Ellison, Cervantes, Huxley, Atwood, Angelou, LeGuin, Robbins, Boccaccio, Melville, Oates, Woolf, Dickinson, and so many more it's impossible to list them all. Go to your local library and look through the "fiction" section--poetry, too. Then you'll know the world as it is. Don't read Shakespeare, though. Those ideas are saturated in your dream world.

There is a reason you believe what you believe. Do you want to know why? Do you really want to know why? Because you've been programmed to think you live in "the twenty-first century" while in the real real world you're naked and bent over walking around with a giant fly tied to your back. Now that you are aware, move your ass because the Lords are waiting for their fucking flies!

Oh, the third-person story? Fuck you and keep walking.

Discursive Thought

My thoughts are of snow. How much? How little? These thoughts are not related to an immediacy of occurrences; rather, they are abstractions to distract me from what I would think if I wasn't thinking of snow. I could be thinking of how many waterfalls there are in the world, but even that is too precise. While there must be something tangible related to the thought--snow exists, certainly--there can't be any more information that might lead to another thought. "How much snow" can not be related to "where" or "when." If I made such an association I might follow thoughts down a winding path that might lead to thinking about something else besides snow. That would be a disaster.

Not thinking at all is even worse because all that surrounds me and all that is within me is suddenly there. The burden of such an awareness is unbearable; perceiving the chaos of sights, sounds, smells, and touches without accompanying thoughts is simply a different form of the cacophony of disorganized thought. And so I think of snow in a way in which there is, in a sense, nowhere to go. I grope with my eyes closed trying to feel flakes or perhaps handfulls from a bank, but there's no way for me to know whether I'm doing either of those things because they aren't happening. I ask, continually, "how much"; there is never an answer. When I shift to "how little" answers are just as elusive.

So I continue in this way as a way to occupy my mind so that rambling thoughts does not arise. The possibility of roaming endlessly down corridors of fears, doubts, wonderings, memories, reinventions of past outcomes, questions like "Did I set my alarm?" or "When was the last time I showered?", such an unending march of thoughts, not one of them meaningful, creating an emotional roller coaster ceaselessly accelerating into a blur of speeding images of strangers waiting in lines at department stores, bored men squeezing the nozzles from gas pumps, women tying their hair back with scrunchies, dogs taking craps on neighborhood lawns, and scenes from movies I didn't like, all of those images and more combining with misaligned sounds, the sounds of the thousands of different ringtones I've heard on buses, trains, airports, and elsewhere, the voices of checkout clerks at grocery stores, automated phone voices asking me to press "1" to confirm my appointment at the doctor's office next Tuesday, geese squawking, dogs barking, super-sized pickup truck engines roaring, and the incomprehensible mash of schoolyard children during recesses, the images and sounds combining even more incoherently with smells of dumpsters outside convenience stores, exhaust from diesel-fueled buses, and the aroma of coffee being made in the kitchen in the morning by a woman whose name I forgot since falling asleep the previous night--smells that have just that sense of time and place and circumstance--all of those images, sounds, and smells mingling like the ingredients in a madman's mixing bowl: Asphalt and milk and potato chips and marbles and iPhones and caulk and butter and crushed. What the fuck am I supposed to do with all that?

So, yes, I think of snow, how much, how little. There's sanity there. At first glance no one could see it, but after the contextual explanation it all makes sense. I can hear a woman's voice, she's talking on the phone, "Well, what else can he do? What would you do? I would think of snow, too, if it got that bad. What's that? Yes, yes he is cowering in the corner right now. Uh huh. Yeah. Oh, I see. Uh huh. No, no, I can't talk with him. I don't really exist."

Why would she say those things? I mean, I can hear her. It's not the first time she's squawked about me to someone else. I never know who she's talking with, though. It could be the same person, but I don't think so. There's too much variation in her tone of voice and the way she responds to unheard questions, questions that may not be, is too diverse. She usually talks with women, but occasionally men. The last conversation she had with a man started this way: "No. No, I'm not going to try that. He'll get upset. He doesn't respond well to that sort of thing. Oh, I'm sure that's you would do. Come on, it's far more complicated than that. Why do you always insist on a one-size-fits-all approach? *Sigh* Yes, I'm still listening. Now--wait a minute! Sure you might be able to do that, but I'm not that strong. Now you're just being rude. I have to go, he's weeping again."

The only time I ever hear her voice is when I am able to successfully think of snow and relax yet again after the run-on of thoughts ceases. She is adept at beginning the cycle again, of preventing me from thinking of snow. Her voice is so soothing, I think it can't possibly be bad, but by the time she hangs up the phone I'm in a state of terror. I don't know why. What I do know is that the bullet train of lightning thoughts comes screaming back into my mind with a rage that startles me. Was it this fast and chaotic before? I can't remember. It seems worse now than before the snow or maybe it's just that the snow was so peaceful that I forgot how rambling thoughts can be.

I had mastered discursive thought after shrooming for long stretches of time. For years after I could turn such thoughts on and off at will. Then the woman's voice came, always talking on the phone. Her voice is not a thought, not something I can control. She's simply there, waiting as far as I know, until I master my thought again. I don't know why she insists on disturbing my peace. I don't even know if that is her intention--and maybe she is not the cause. But the sequence has been wild run-on thoughts followed by willful mastery followed by an ease of being followed by the woman's voice followed by a belligerence of racing thoughts; the cycle begins again.

How do I escape from such a trap? I don't. I've come to accept that this particular cycle--it is not the only cycle in town--may be like that of the seasons. It is part of my rhythm, like it or not, so I may as well like it. Not that it's easy to do. I'm neither a sadist nor a masochist, but I certainly would rather inflict pain than have it inflicted on me so if I lean in a particular direction it would be toward sadism. Unfortunately, this pattern is suited for a masochist. Had I been born with a proclivity to enjoy my own misery this cycle would be heavenly. The big question facing me now is "Can masochism be learned?" I don't know, but I'm exploring the possibilities.

This isn't the cycle, though, certainly not one that is endless and always. Sometimes there is wonder and joy then directed thought followed by a whispered imagination slipping into a futility I can best whip out of through extroversion then, perhaps, there will be quiet or sequential dottings of "i's" or maybe adopted personas for role playing--though I sometimes forget for months and even years that the persona was adopted--as well as rest then excess mixed with comparative thinking or analytic reasoning broken up by magical musings. When I refuse to consider everything I hurt all over, but when I think of nothing I feel fine. That makes no sense to me, but I've come to accept that senselessness is not absurdity but simply the way things are. I have too often tried to apply the ideas of order created by others. This has always caused pain and a sense of failure.

One day quite some time ago I simply realized everyone was wrong--at least about me. There was no big flash or lightning bolt that resulted in me leaping into the air shouting "Aha!" No, I was painting and I saw a swirl of color and thought, "I think everyone else is wrong. Huh. That's something." Then I went back to painting as if nothing of significance had occurred. The reality is that the ways of others are not my ways. I've tried ways that are not my own; they just don't work. Now I simply say to the ideas of others that do not jibe with my experience of being, "Fuck you, you arrogant assholes. Your gibberish doesn't jibe with me."

On occasion, though, I've been locked in cages by bands of strict and narrow thinkers with more might than I could muster on my own. They interpreted my insistence on autonomy as insolence then forced my mouth open and shoved pills down my throat before tossing me into cold, dark cells in attempts to force me to think like they did--as if such a thing was possible. The conclusion I have so far drawn from such experiences is that my thoughts are far less absurd than the actions of those around me. But it does me no more good to rail at the absurdity of the world than it does for me to try to change my experience of being.

I could say I wasn't meant for this world, but that would only make sense if I believed the presumption that experiencing inexplicable pain arising from within and raining down from without is unjust. Justice is a concept that can only make me miserable because I've witnessed no evidence that such a thing exists. Love, too, is a concept of cruelty, no more likely to be experienced than to ride a unicorn over rainbows into a Land of Forever and Ever. There are emotional experiences that make me profoundly happy, though: tenderness, kindness, passionate kisses, painterly sunsets, affection, wonder, awe, and more.

Given that, I do without certain concepts as much as I can. All of which leads back to the problem of discursive thought. Those damn ideas of love and justice and equality and hope roll around in the swirl of my unchecked thoughts telling me lies about what should be, what could be, what would be, but never have been. I have to remind myself that most of the ideas I've encountered in life are lies--or maybe just wrong. It doesn't matter which; I'm not interested in assigning blame. Not at all. My thoughts are of snow. How much? How little?

Alone Together

I live

in dreams and memories

reminiscing

about the city

I once lived

alone

I share with you

the city

I lived

forgetting

no one was with me

in dreams and memories

I have dreams

about the city

I once lived

I wake

I remember

no one was with me

in the city

I dreamt

I lived

The city

a memory from dreams

of memories in dreams

I have memories

in dreams

reminiscing

of dreams

in the city

I once lived

alone

In memories of dreams

I feel less

alone

I remember

the city

visiting

friends and family

in dreams and memories

alone

I tell stories

people and places

no one knows

I wonder why

no one remembers

we lived together

our hearts were full

we smiled together

we understood

I forget

no one was with me

in dreams and memories

alone

In dreams and memories

I believe

you were with me

Now I talk past

you

about the city

you never shared with me

in dreams and memories

I once lived

alone

I live

in dreams and memories

forgetting

you are alive

I feel

I am

grandfather

teacher

guru

talking with you

grandchildren

students

apprentices

I share

dreams and memories

I value

forgetting

you do not care

You are busy

not living

dreams and memories

I forget

you do not see

me

definitely not

the way

I am

You think

I am alive

maybe

you do not care

I share with you

dreams and memories

from the city

we lived

together

alone

You do not remember

you were

alone

together

Extremely Short-Term Relationships

Over here.

Oh, yeah. Sorry, I didn't recognize you. Your hair is much shorter in your online profile.

Do you like it?

Well, I think I mentioned that I was only interested in going out with women with shorter hair so ...

You don't like it, do you?

No, it looks great. I think I need to put more change in the parking meter, though.

...

Hi, I'm Michael.

I'm Deborah.

This is my first time "speed dating." I don't really know the protocols.

Oh, I've been to dozens of these things. You just loosen up, relax, and have fun.

Just kinda let it all hang out, I guess, huh?

What do you mean?

Well, we've only got five minutes so I guess I should drop the big bombs right away.

Um, sure, if that's--I'm not sure I know what you mean.

Well, first of all, I think you're very attractive.

Thank you. That's sweet.

But I don't have a good feeling about this.

Why not?

How can I share anything substantial in a few minutes?

Substantial?

Yeah, like who I am, how I think, what I feel, anything.

I don't know. Just try to have fun.

Okay. If you could travel anywhere in the world with me tonight, no questions asked, no concerns about money, where would you like to go?

Oh, that's fun. Um, let's see ... Barstow!

Next!

...

Oh, this place is great!

Yeah, this is my coffee shop.

Yours?

It's where I go to drink espresso and write everyday.

I didn't realize you were a writer.

I'm not a writer. I write.

Same difference.

No, not at all. I'm sorry, but this isn't going to work. Shit, now I'll have to find a new coffee shop.

...

So, how much money do you make?

[cough] Excuse me?

You know, your income. Do you make six figures?

Um, I need to check the parking meter.

...

Do you find it difficult to find someone who is a good fit for you?

Oh, all the time. The last guy I saw was incredibly narcissistic. I listened to him drone on and on all night. For some stupid reason I went out with him for six months.

Six months? Why?

He was young, good looking, and a doctor! I had to give it a real shot.

Oh. Yeah, I can understand why you'd have trouble finding a good fit. Excuse me, I'm going to the restroom.

You're going the wrong way.

Yeah, that's okay.

...

We've been out for what, two hours now?

Something like that, yeah.

I can't tell you the last time a first date has lasted this long.

What do you mean?

Well, most of the women I've tried dating recently have been ... unappealing. Not just marginally, but significantly. I was beginning to wonder if there were any women of substance in the world. But you, I mean, you're intelligent, funny, insightful, relaxed, and at ease with yourself. It's refreshing.

Thank you.  You've had bad luck dating lately?

No luck at all.

I'm sorry to hear that.

That's okay. I wouldn't have met you if that hadn't been the case.

Um, yeah, well. You know, I should check the parking meter just in case. I'll be right back.

...

So, you're from Argentina, the country that welcomed the Nazis after World War II.

I ... I'm going to leave now.

...

You're so funny!

Excuse me.

What you just said was hilarious!

I said that this is a good chardonnay.

I know! Hysterical!

I, um, I may regret asking this but ... how is that funny?

Because you said that's a good chardonnay and it clearly isn't! You didn't really think it was good, did you?

You know, you're an incredibly beautiful woman and ... I think forgot to pay the parking meter.

There's no parking meter here.

Yeah, I'm going to check, anyway. 

...

You go to this club a lot?

Yeah.

Is it typical for the band to urinate on the crowd?

Nah. Usually bands cut themselves and bleed on the audience or throw shit on everyone. Tonight's kind of lame.

I see. I'm going to get another drink, do you want anything?

No, I'm cool. I just huffed some glue.

*sigh*

...

I don't know why I bothered tonight.

What do you mean?

I mean every date I've had in the last two months has been horrible. If things don't work out tonight I'm just going to give up, resign myself to being alone, and remain celibate.

Check!

...

Oh, excuse me! I'm sorry I didn't see you there. I should have looked where I was going.

Yeah, that would have been nice, douchebag.

[laughter] Sorry, that was funny. I haven't been called a douchebag for years.

That's hard to believe given the way you walk around like the world owes you.

Well, fuck you, too.

Douchebag.

Is that all you got? Douchebag?

Oh, no, I could rip into your woman-hating ass all night long, but I need to leave Powell's and go to a party with real men.

That's much better. I hope you run into many more douchebags tonight. Sincerely.

You're a fucking asshole.

You're a man-hating cunt.

Did you just call me a cunt?

Yeah, it took a little bit but you rose to the occasion. You should be proud. Not very many women scale the mountain of cunthood as quickly as you did. Impressive.

Were you raised by a mother who hated you? If she didn't, she should have.

You are so viciously horrifying, your heart is like a lump of dirty coal retrieved by emaciated miners with lung cancer, and I'm completely crazy about you.

You are completely devoid of any redeeming qualities and you ceaselessly project your self-loathing onto me. You want to go to the party?

I'm sure it will be a fuck-twat anarchic slacker gathering of unwashed suicidal depressives, so, yeah.

It sucks that you want to go because we'll probably fuck later.

I'm not looking forward to what is likely to be the most grotesque sexual experience of my life, but I'm so covered with the stink of your repulsion that it's impossible to say no.

This could be the beginning of a long and emotionally-draining dysfunctional relationship.

Since you're obviously incapable of love you're probably right.

Then let's go, you fucking douchebag.

Platitude Romance

I had the time of my life which was just a waste of time. It seemed like it lasted an eternity, but I just lost track of time. In a matter of time I was old as the hills and, yet, fit as a fiddle. I felt like a diamond in the rough without a care in the world. 

She scared me out of my wits, though. I was frightened to death and she was brave as a lion; they say opposites attract. Haste makes waste and I saw the writing on the wall in the nick of time: I was head over heels, but the cat got my tongue. She read between the lines and sent a shiver up my spine: "I love you more than life itself."

As my heart-stopping fear turned into gut-wrenching pain, I replied, "That and a quarter will get you a cup of coffee."

I could feel the quiet before the storm. Aghast, she asked, "Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed?" 

I sighed. "Don't get your knickers in a twist. Rome wasn't built in a day." All that glitters is not gold.

There comes a time in every man's life when saying there comes a time in every man's life is what it is. "Tomorrow is another day and we'll laugh about this soon enough."

She agreed. "It will look better in the morning after a good night's sleep. Time heals all wounds. After all, it could be worse"

That was neither here nor there as far as I was concerned. "If it wasn't meant to be at least the best things in life are free." 

She laughed. "What's done is done and we are where we are."

She knew damn well, though, that what goes around comes around and what goes up must come down. I said, "The more things change the more they stay the same." 

Her response was ponderous. "You can be anything you want to be."

I'd had enough. "Patience is a virtue. I'm sorry that's not what you want to hear, but there are plenty more fish in the sea. Besides, it's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all." 

I was surprised to hear her reply: "It doesn't matter whether you win or lose as long as you play the game. If at first you don't succeed, try and try again."

I smiled, pleased and relieved, "Everything always works out in the end because God never gives us more than we can bear. Just think how much worse other people have it."

"We're all in this together; there is no 'I' in team." 

Why would she say that? "With all due respect, teamwork makes the dream work." 

I thought that would silence her, but she shot back, "Work hard, play hard!" 

I said, "No, work smarter, not harder." 

She retorted, "Hard work always pays off."

Ha! Ridiculous. "No offense, but winners never quit and quitters never win." 

She changed tack. "God has a plan for you. Follow your passion."

I could get on board with that, following my bliss and living each moment like it was my last. I finally replied, "Yes, live in the moment because money can't buy happiness. That's just my personal opinion. Let's not reinvent the wheel; this isn't rocket science." I breathed easy and continued to go with the flow. "It's all good."

She slyly put the knife in. "It could be worse. After all, you are what you eat."

Oh, come on! "Think outside the box!" I exclaimed.

She tried to put a positive spin on it. "Take the lemons and make lemonade."

What? I mean, all men are created equal, but only the good die young. I knew this would hurt me more than it hurt her: "It's always darkest just before dawn."

She hung her head. "All's fair in love and war."

I could feel the tide turning. "If you can't stand the heat then get out of the kitchen."

She snapped back, "Be careful what you wish for because with great power comes great responsibility!"

Turns out, you can't judge a book by it's cover. After all, beauty is only skin deep. Begrudgingly, I said, "You're as young as you feel; age is just a number."

A sarcastic laugh and a flippant response: "The road to hell was paved with good intentions." Then she paused, sighing. "Nevertheless, laugh and the world laughs with you."

I took my foot off the gas. "Forgive and forget. What doesn't kill you will only make you stronger."

She nodded. "That's why love means never having to say you're sorry."

"Waste not want not even if it wasn't meant to be." I realized people only regret the things they didn't do. In this case, better late than never.

She became philosophical: "What the mind can conceive, it can achieve." 

I was inexplicably perturbed. "That's for me to know and you to find out!"

But she had the last laugh: "Good things come to those who wait, but nice guys finish last."

Rinse, Spin, Repeat

This is to notify the masses that I am on hiatus from Amsterdam writing and will be filling the void with posts such as this. What sort of post is this? That has yet to be determined. Suffice it to say that it is likely to be crap. Why? Because my mind is frazzled. The Amsterdam series is the equivalent of three hundred 1.5-spaced Word document pages. The intensity of writing such a series is exhausting, to put it mildly. So, you'll be left with crap like this over the next month, give or take.

Perhaps it won't be crap, though. Maybe only this post will be crap, the crap I need to take to clear my mind, to allow my thought to unravel, to breathe a little easier. I haven't written anything that could be feasibly said to be dada or anti-dada or neutra-dada or splooge-dada or kerploeey-dada in quite some time. I probably never have. Or that's all I've ever written, not one lick of anything I've written making a bit of sense. Maybe it's all just made up horse-sense. Or maybe every fucking thing I've written is the Truth and nothing anyone else writes is anything but fantasy.

Yes, the latter is true. I know it is because I said it is. That doesn't mean that this writing is anything but crap, though. The Truth is Crap. I shall take a closer look at this crap to determine if it is anything but crap. What follows is likely crap:

Life versus Profit, a grudge match between breathing and misinformation, the working poor mentally and physically exhausted, the media clapping its hands feverishly, the endless stream of Reality TV not because life is too boring but too frightening; dysfunction and imbalance tilting family and social relationships because, well, who has the time? The cultural environment is best described as emotional breakdown, desperation, confusion, anger, resentment, frustration, and angst; the workaday world, a world of horrors, of perpetrators and enablers; First World Third World, master-slave, drilling and mining, throwing rocks at tanks, deserts of blood, forests of limbs; With Us Against Us, heroic and patriotic platitudes, blind trust in shock and awe, terror and destruction; Thoughts and Prayer, beliefs in ineffectual nothings, courage existing in dying hearts; Nation Is a Person, metaphors and analogies -- lies, lies, lies; Acceptance ... gone fishing.

Hugs from Disney World, we're having the best time without you, we care about you only to the extent that you represent a being that witnesses our being, you don't exist otherwise, not for us, we don't need you and we certainly don't want to be your representational witnesses; I earned my place in the world, my property, my possessions, my attitude of disdain for you, mine, mine, mine, I am a middle-aged two-year old with a lot of stuff and I want more of it, you can't have that, that's mine! Give me the toys, they're not yours, they're mine! Don't you get tired of being that way? Mom, the anti-materialism boy is bothering me again, can I shoot him? I can? Yay!

I shall now perform a feat of Marxism which will slowly devolve: Violent extremes of wealth and income are inherent to capitalism. Inequality cannot be viewed except through an institutional context. The fundamental characteristic of materialism is fatalism. An ersatz capitalism socializes losses and privatizes gains, succumbing to monopoly and oligopoly. Policy and law are the backbone of these economics despite what anyone wants to believe; ideologies and interests are expressed most clearly in tax rates and loopholes ... and bailouts. Corporations are persons but so are humans; the inequality between them is the result of a glaring but somehow unnoticed segregation. Privilege as a natural right has weaseled its way into social acceptance, expressed most dramatically through voting ... and not voting. Justice is a commodity affordable only to a few; could such a thing be just? Depends on who is writing the narrative. Trickle down economics continually trickles to Cayman Island bank accounts.

Peter Singer, reasons to like him: 1) He aims to reduce the suffering of sentient beings in the world (he includes animals in that category); 2) He is a practical and theoretical philosopher; 3) He shakes the tree of Christianity through criticism of historical harms against animal welfare, the environment, and the poorest of the poor; 4) He is a fascinating, engaging, passionate, and provocative writer who researches thoroughly; 5) He points a finger in the direction society is heading no matter how radical or disturbing.

Peter Singer, reasons to dislike him: 1) He reduces reason to utilitarianism and sees life and its fruits as exchangeable commodities in the currency of pain and pleasure (and sometimes preferences); 2) he views ethics through the lenses of dilemmas, calculations, and consequences and ignores the development of virtue; 3) He views life too abstractly by emphasizing impartiality, as if humanity has ever operated from a motivational center of impartiality; 4) Singer's utilitarianism is reliant on conventional values, an example being his convoluted boundaries of personhood using a calculus that cannot articulate justifications without using the very morality he so often argues against; 5) He seeks to discredit opposing views through argumentation rather than philosophical integrity.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost the U.S. over three trillion dollars to date. Imagine how many tacos could have been bought with that kind of money. About three trillion, I suppose. Dollar per taco? Seems about right. Three trillion fucking tacos. That's over four tacos per person for every human being in the world--but infants don't eat tacos and neither do those in intensive care! I think it's okay to round up to six tacos per person. If those tacos had stayed in the United States and been dispersed to every U.S. citizen--including infants and the infirm--then each person would have had a thousand tacos. A thousand tacos for every man, woman, and child. That's a lot of tacos.

Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) was the author of the PATRIOT Act. Amazingly, he wants to fix it because he's been surprised at how it has been abused by law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Big ol' shock there. Jim may not be bright, but at least he ain't smart. But he actually is miffed that the law was used for bulk collection of data, including personal telephone calls, on millions of citizens without regard to the Fourth Amendment (never mind that the law provided the legal means to muddy the meanings of search and seizure). Either way, ol' Sensei Brenner wants to stop the madness fourteen years after the madness began. Good for him. Pat on the head for you, Jimbo. Edward Snowden would be ... well, I suppose you'd have to ask him what he thinks, Sensei.

In the Sabine Parish School District in Louisiana a sixth-grade Buddhist student missed the supposedly correct answer for this question on a science test: "Isn't it amazing what the [blank] has made!" The "correct" answer: "Lord." Now that's good science! Gotta get me some of that good ol' science and eat it right up for breakfast or maybe just unroll it so I can wipe my ass with it: I'll either wind up with an empty stomach or a hand full of shit. Louisiana's got it going on in the science department: One science textbook being used in schools receiving federal tax dollars states that the existence of dragons has been proven scientifically; by analyzing certain dinosaur skulls scientists have determined that large chambers within "could have contained special chemical-producing glands. When the animal forced the chemicals out of its mouth or nose, these substances may have combined and produced fire and smoke." Apparently, these fire-breathing creatures existed just a few thousand years ago. They may have been pets for humans! Surprisingly, Louisiana is ranked 48th in education in the U.S. Only West Virginia and South Carolina fare worse--makes me wonder what in the hell is being taught in South Carolina! Do South Carolina textbooks claim that air pollution is the result of God's farts? Could be. May as well be.

Try as I might, I will never be as absurd as the world around me. Saddens me. I try, really, I try, but I'm so fucking average when it comes to being absurd. The board of education in Louisiana is kicking my ass at this game.  Nothing could be as Anti-Dada as they are. They are masters: Even if I wanted to do so I never could have gotten shit like that printed in textbooks. Fuck, I want to meet the author. What a fucking genius! That person's imagination, holy fuck. I want to drop Acid with the author some time, see what kinds of crazy shit we can cook up for the next batch of high school science textbooks.