mildly political

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/081230/usa/us_politics_race_obama_republicans

i would have voted for sharpton.

just for fun........

personal vs.political.

personal is real, political is metaphysical......or imaginary.

that`s why there are no political solutions, only personal ones, done by real people with thier own efforts.

so next time, don`t vote......act.

voting feeds politicians.

taking action effects change.

abundance.

abundance is all there is.

there is no lack save for that we decide there is in our lives.

i know you want to prove me wrong, but that`s your own trip.....the fact remains that there is so much of everything piled up here that some people can`t step back far enough to be able to see it.

ever wonder why some have more than others?

it`s about the pictures they show themselves.

see?

merry consumerist spasm.

for without it we wouldn`t have an economy........

jeez.

from manufacturing to service to..........

the prevailing buzz amongst analysts is that we are at the end of the manufacturing age in north america, and i tend to agree.

the analysts speak of us entering a service economy wherein we will all be gainfully employed in providing a service of some sort......

...everything from baby-sitting to counceling to sales.

cool.

except that money (capital) is moving so quickly these days that the service jobs are being taken by new immigrants, or outsourced overseas......as anyone who has spoken to a call-in service department recently will understand.

and with the emerging next economy involving total connectivity and information management, only those with a complete understanding of this technology and administration will be able to capitalise.

so it begs the question......

....doesn`t it?

economics.

as we enter into this uncertain economic time, i want to explore something that i have noticed recently.

i was looking for a bread knife, the type with the long serated blade, so that i could cut bagels without squashing them.........and so i looked at prices in the shops.

i found some really nice ones.

$100.

i found some adequate ones.

$50.+

i found some serviceable ones.

$25.

in a shop called homesense they sell domestic products from bedsheets to carpets to frying pans, and while there i found a nice breadknife reduced from $24.95 to $14.95 and so i felt had i had the best value and took the knife home and gleefully cut bagels.......

a few days later i was in the dollar store (everything for a dollar.) and saw the identical knife, without the attendant glossy packaging and rhetoric, for A DOLLAR.

i returned the pricey one and i continue to enjoy crisp cut and un-squashed bagels .

my point?

mall retail cannot afford to continue to sell the same products for 15 times the price in an economic atmosphere such as this. the type of person that deliberately pays for the more expensive version can only indulge themselves for a short period longer.

when both retailers are buying the knife from the same distributor, it`s only a matter of time before the game becomes obvious to all but politicians and professors of economics, and people will "vote" with thier money........and more shops will have to close thier doors....or drop prices, and hope hier customers forgive them thier gouging.

we have been enjoying this false prosperity since the end of the second world war, and it is clear to most that this process is winding down, and that manufacturing salaries are disappearing in whole numbers even though the politicians are scrambling to enact bailouts.

this will only prolong the process, and give people false hope of a recovery into high-paying union protected jobs in industry once this is "over".

the truth is that we hve slowly but surely been evolving into a service sector economy, providing management, accounting, sales and so on.......and so, if you are looking at re-training or this is your first step into the employment field, then learn some skills in those areas.

or emigrate.

gratitude.....

....it comes down to this; be grateful, it just feels good.

studies have shown that the process of being grateful, speaking, writing and otherwise processing gratitude, released brain chemicals that make us feel good.

so here is my induction into feeling good.

i am grateful for a long list of things, and i will list a few of them here.

friends.

little dogs.

my children.

my health.

the perfect shot.

community.

recognising.

the look of love in her eyes.

the look of love in her eyes.

the look of love in her eyes.

talent.

skills won hard through practice.

the on-going second chance that life offers.

......there, i feel better now.

and......

......how about a day where nobody discusses sexual orientation of any sort at all?

but now i`m being insensitive.....

i um, oh fuck it....

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=4226712&cl=11042064&src=news


we are entering the final days.

for years i thought the religious zealots were just a bunch of loonies, and well, that view hasn`t changed.....but when i hear people taking this shit seriously i think the fundies might have a point.

quiet recently.

and so the posts have been few and far between.

having said that, i find the break from posting and commenting elsewhere has allowed me to refresh my view with regard to the whole mechanism of blogging and opinion and so on.......

.....so thanks for your readership and sharing whatever happens next.

cheers.

i love stupid people.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/081124/odds/odd_us_china_panda


i just wanted to cuddle? fuckwit.

ok, so where did this dim bulb get the idea that the panda would actually be up for a cuddle?

pictures of pandas and representations of pandas in stories and conversations.

in other words..........

the ideas of others.

like a map.

not reality.

too often we are responding to maps, and not checking for the reality.

pandas are a type of bear by the way. a bear stoned on eucalyptus, but a bear nonetheless......and if we stop to think for a minute, we realise that bears are really big, strong predators, that have the potential to hurt and kill weak, hairless, slow-moving hominoids.

so kiddies, the next time you get the idea that what looks like a cartoon character might appreciate your "human" touch; think twice......dumbass, or we`ll have yet another news story to laugh outloud at.

why?

why does this message of unconditional love for the self persist?

because if not, we would die.

this message is the essence of uor existance.

if we try hard enough we can shout it down, we can drug it or make it physically or mentally sick, or we can become so goal-driven that we exhaust ourselves and are doing nothing but working or sleeping.

and even then the spirit persists and even if we stop for a moment, the voice whispers still.

we then begin to realise just how hard it is to not unconditionally love one`s self.

but the un-merry-go-round still spins.......until we choose to step off.

why?

time out.

it is necessary to take time out occasionally to remove one`s self from the mainstream of culture, society, family, business, career and everything else that demands our attention....so that we can tune in to the inner voice that has quietly been trying to get our attention for some time.

this voice has been with us all of our lives, through thick and thin, saying the same thing over and over.

i love you. i always will.

this voice has had to compete with every single amplified screaming noise that modern life provides, and we have hemmed ourselves into a box and arranged surround-sound systems to blast more of these sounds at us from the moment we wake each day.

but the quiet voice persists.

sit quietly sometime away from the racket, up on a hillside or deep in a cave perhaps, or sitting on your couch breathing deeply and letting the noises go

for ricardo..........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv4f6xH-OwM

it may not seem real, but it is the way things are.

rememberance day.

a time to remember those who died for our right to say the most outragious things about anything we want to using the most sophisticated technology ever imagined.......

so be grateful for those who payed the ultimate price, not by buying a poppy necessarily, but by understanding that occasionally war is the only option.

when we aren`t too busy trying to save the planet of course.

about time......

... i posted something.

ok, so we have a new president.

did you notice how little a deal it really is, or are you waiting for the music to begin and the curtain to rise on a different world?

so, once again, we are given the opportunity to see that everything isn`t political.

unless you are a control freak.

in which case getting "your guy" into office is critical.

me? i`m just doing the same shit.

breathing in and out. thinking. shaking my head at the futility. the abject boredom. the bankrupcy. the tiresome sameness of people`s expectation that things will change....even though they personally do nothing at all to effect such a change.

the only way things change is if we make them change.

voting once every four years isn`t doing it folks.

unless you are looking for a reason to be disappointed until it`s time to vote again.

look at hockey for instance.

the team does shit for a month and the coach and manager get fired.

maybe we should do that with presidents.

it won`t do much to change things either, but it would be more fun to watch.

because it is entertainment after all.

did you ever wonder why more and more pundits are comedians?

moroccanroll......

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7693988.stm

even in second life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNOAR3jztrM

and maybe in first life, if you try...........

not for liberals.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html

this is peace folks.........

pat condell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-KHHKuVVRc

as a communicator i struggle to say difficult things with the clarity of this man.

thanks to youtube and blogger i can now allow pat to speak for me on the thorny issue of the islamification of the west.

enjoy.....and please, once you have watched, let me know what you think.

cheers.

not suitable to watch....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwooM4yhiiY&feature=related


......if you work in a church.

when you`ve finished laughing, be good boys and girls and leave a comment.

thanks.

flying mince.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdNqUW5wwTE

NOT suitable to view at work.

good advice about diet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuUpShuC5dY

and don`t be offended by the fucking swearing.

unconditional.

i`d like to dedicate this to ms.q.

unconditional.

that means without conditions.

like...all the time.

that`s how i set out to write this blog some years ago when i realised the relationship with the mother of my children was falling apart.

and how i realised that i could love myself.

unconditionally.

accepting.

realising.

loving and supporting.

because i knew truths about myself that were good and bad. and accepted that i`d got this far in this state and that i could experience love and devotion....i learned this through becoming a father........and that the world that i didn`t want to bring children into for most of my adult life had this ability to be ok once i began to accept and love myself unconditionally.

so it all comes back to this; once we find a way to unconditionally love ourselves, then others are left to face thier own decisions about themselves (or not....) and our lives change.

we stop putting ourselves in situations that are uncomfortable, or worse...and we put less obligation on others, and let them do thier thing and accept that too.

meeting others expectations a challenge?

then stop.

and sit back and watch the damage that expectations can cause....and just accept and love yourself.

others can then choose to do that too.

and you will be suprised at who comes and who goes from your life.

i feel like preaching a bit this afternoon so forgive me, or not, as i type away about what i feel is the most important practice we can take up on our journey through whatever it is we are journeying through in our conscious awareness.

oh yeah, and be prepared for the consquences of such a self-indulgent act. some will get hostile when you refuse to feed thier disagreement.

one of the first challenges i met in blogging was the power of disagreement.

people would openly challenge my posts and comments with all manner of comments in return, that, if we had been face-to-face, would have been too confrontational.

it took some adjustment on my part and a new-found confidence in my position to continue on typing and posting....to the point where i discovered that i really did love, not only myself, but how i said what i said.

and so i come full circle to begining to post once again about the unconditional love for the self.

also called not taking shit.

try it for a day or two and watch eyebrows fly.

no shit sherlock.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/081001/us/usreport_us_cereal_sugar_1

"kellogs are working to make thier cereals more nutritious."

bullshit.

if they managed people wouldn`t eat them.

oatmeal, or as we called it as kids, porridge, is a dense, low glycemic food that is equally good for men and for horses......and as any horse owner will tell you......he ain`t feeding morning star lucky charms.

the majority of commercially available cereals are only as nutritious as the milk you drown them in, and your are better off eating the box they came in as they provide many minerals, oils and types of fibre not found in the nutitionally inert consumer product inside.

many of my weight-loss clients struggle with their wieght simply because the makers of these products lie to them, and while people try to limit caloric intake, the body needs nutrition from the calories ingested.

you would have to eat an entire box of special k, for example, to get enough protien and carbohydrate in a useable form to make it to lunch........

.......so people struggle in agony all morning and over eat at lunch.......or struggle further in cognitive deficit until supper and then devour whatever is available then.

and continue to eat late into the evening, because the bodies natural tendancy is to eat when real food is available.

stomachs don`t lie.

eat oatmeal in the morning and have a salad for lunch and a sandwich and fruit for supper.

and wake up hungry.

repeat.....and live lean and strong with energy all day.

and stop getting diet advice from commercials.

some logic required.

http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/va/20081001/122289041500.html

firstly, mr.lee is not being criticized on how he makes a film, but on the factual content within the work......and secondly, mr.lee doesn`t make films that aren`t going to get "special" attention.

lee deliberately takes on subjects that promote issues of race, which he has a right to do, and has made a fine living at it.

having said that, i`m not contending that i have any knowledge whatsoever of what happened.

i will leave that to the experts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Tipler#The_Omega_Point

i have posted this previously, but one thing i realised is that someone or something had to build the damned thing in the first place.....unless it just compiled it`s self automatically.

the scientists say we all evolved out of the first protoplasmic organisms coming from mud, and the religious say we are a divine creation coming form god.

niether really says much about what went before.

so.

the question remains.

what went before all of this.

what was before the big bang...............and what did it bang into?

proof positive.

we find ways to make what we believe become a reality.

look around you and see what you`ve created......every second of your conscious existance.

the cold arrives.

yesterday it was warm and humid, and today it`s cold and just damp.

my knees are telling me that winter is on the way and that i should be thinking about getting my mountain bike ready in the next few weeks as the road bike weather is passing quickly.

oh yeah....and it`s time to price out oil heaters for the apartment. last year i used the oven to heat the place too many times.

but i do love apartment living though........except the fuckwit who keeps taking my shit out of the dryer.

bring back the death penalty for that one i say.

week-end.

hope everyone has a great weekend, taking advantage of what could be the last of the summer heat.

i h ave finally turned the corner on this summer flu, or whatever the hell it was, and i`m lookng forward to getting back to focused training and competition, as the play-offs are here in both my soccer leagues.

i will be back to posting on a more regular basis when i find a deal on a laptop, so that i can post from home and spend abit more time researching my points and following the links on your sites at my leasure. the distractions at the library get to be too much here.

silly me, i thought libraries were supposed to be QUIET!

btw, if anyone local has a laptop for sale let me know.

cheers.

we forget.......

.....that we can show ourselves a picture or two, of some of our favorite things, and in an instant we become tranceformed......(transformed.)

try this now.

go to youtube and search for a video that will thrill you.

once you have watched the video, spend a few moments remembering how you felt while you watched it, what you saw, what you felt, what you said to yourself while you watched.

amplify what you saw, what you felt, and what you heard yourself say to yourself....to the point where you can barely stand to do it anymore.

fell better?

i thought so.

repeat when necessary.

flu.

or something like it.

for the last six weeks or so i have been experiencing flu-like symptoms that have gone from sinus conjestion to the guts and back.

i believe the immune deficit began with mosquito bites while camping, something i rarely do, and so the effect of so many bites overwhelmed my natural ability to deal with such foriegn matter in my system. i would have been fiine but we ran out of repellent on the last day and so while packing to leave i was bitten hundreds of times and by the time we had driven 200 miles home i was already feeling the effects.

i can understand now how things like westnile virus can kill older people and those already ill.

we live in such a sheltered place in suburbia that any time we venture out into the wild away from airconditioning and starbucks we run the risk of exposure to things that can threaten out very existance.

i will have to take more repellant next time.

http://www.amazon.com/Cult-Amateur-Internet-Killing-Culture/dp/0385520808

one of the most amusing books i`ve read in quite a while.

in it the author finds fault in the prolifieration of myspace, youtube, facebook and blogging sites that allow "amateurs" to post and publish thier own works to share, and suggests this is the end of a functioning culture, and that somehow there will no longer be quality work done by experts as a result.

a little digging will find that the author is a internet tycoon himself and his venture, audiocafe, failed.....

so instead of trying again he writes a hostile criticism of the entire internet culture.

if mr.keen was truly concerned and interested in where culture is heading he would have read a variety of works, many of which are known by experts and amateurs alike as predicing precisely where culture is today.

i will suggest he start with marshall mcluhan, a man who never lived to see youtube, but predicted that it had to happen once society found the means to make it happen.

the author`s society of experts is also manifesting it`s self in meatspace...and his honour guard of lawyers, doctors and other bureaucrats are driving up prices to the point where the cost of everything will be out of reach of everyone but the elite, and us mere amateurs will need a certification to walk down the street.

http://andrewkeen.typepad.com/

here is andrew fully availing himself of a variety of free internet services that only exist on the backs of the desire of amateurs to communicate, for whatever reasons they have. a touch hypocritical..........

i wonder if his content is posted on youtube.

umbass.

jeez.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080821/sc_livescience/studylargeearthquakecouldstrikenewyorkcity

y`know somewhere in the toolbar there is probably a button whereby i can make the letters in this post really big so that i can yell the headline of this yahoo article at you all....but i can`t be bothered at this point.

reading all these awful things has tired me to the point of despondancy.

and i don`t even watch tv.

a large earthquake could hit new york city.

expert scientists say so.

same ones that say the ice caps are melting and we are going to be growing palm trees soon.

good. i hate the cold and the snow and the cold.

did i mention i hate snow?

the tires on my bike are only an inch wide.

do you know how hard it is to ride through snow with tires that narrow?

i ride a bike so that i can single handedly thwart the rampant rise in global temperatures so that we will continue to see snowy winters for the next thousand years.

wait a minute.

my tires are only an inch wide.

what am i thinking.......

whit powder, threats?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080821/pl_nm/usa_politics_mccain_threat_dc

hmmm, i wonder if that would work with the ex?

no. never mind. forget i said that.........

question.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080821/ap_on_sc/sci_greenland_glaciers

apparently scientists themselves admit they know that this process in unstoppable.........so why the agitation to raise taxes to "stop" global warming?

fat guy.....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080821/ap_on_fe_st/odd_barbie_fishing_record

......murders a defenseless creature with a child`s toy, while traumatizing his daughter.

i couldn`t resist.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/demo/?review=1#url=http://www.stevecarter.com/albumcovers.htm

pigmonkey.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCpT88Jw-f4&feature=related

pretty much sums it up.

proof.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080811/od_afp/switzerlandoffbeatart

this just proves it. i just know it does......i just forget what.

a recommendation.

see the movie "michael clayton" with george clooney. it deals with the bureaucracy in the only way humanly possible; by telling the truth........

hey al......

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/fossilsuggestsantarcticamuchwarmerinpast

sssssh, algore`s sleeping..........and if he wakes and hears us giggling about all this he`ll try to get a law passed whereby it will be illegal to point out the obvious about the present global temperature increase.

he wants us all to be impressionable school kids (and teachers...) who will golly-gee him to death with his flash movie and dry dead-pan delivery.

and utter bullshit.

or, maybe real scientists without political agendas are just wrong.

hitrate.

there are those amongst the blogging community that feel that a hitrate is a valued commodity......and that a constant flood of comments somehow validates thier personal insight into the world at large.

while this position has some validity when the information provided in the blog has some real-world utility, most blogs are a community of like-minded souls sharing and re-agreeing with eachother`s position.

in this state most blogs are reminiscent of a good morning coffee with the lads at starbucks.

but to think that your popularity in the search engines is because your writing is somehow new or interesting to anyone else but your friends or about ready to instigate the charge against "the man" is missing the point of blogging entirely.........

and if your writing was helping you to evolve into a modern-era che guevara then it would just help the "man" to find your subversive ass.

oh, and sorry if the odd spelling error sends you into a perceptional tailspin. perhaps reading isn`t your thing.

viva zapata, n`shit......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr800IK_aVI

cnn style debate.

the media teaches us to choose sided prior to listening to arguements provided by "experts".

this causes some interesting things to happen.

firstly people consume this sort of arguement like they consume wrestling; as a circus show.

secondly, they take this mode of communication into thier daily lives and expect eveyone to be "down" with the smackdown responses to comments in conversation.

this sort of pissing engenders a further division of people based on thier political, religious or scientific beliefs, and eventually filters down into the exchange of everything between people.

no wonder we have road rage.

you can get driven off the road and killed now because you don`t drive the same car as the guy behind you.......

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080705/ap_on_go_su_co/benefit_battles

absolute tragedy. we live in a society dominated by large corporations who take our money under pretense and then refuse to deliver the product or service promised, while hiding behind legislation and legal process designed specifically to financially and emotionally drain private individuals looking for recourse.

we have a choice, but it means turning our backs on the commercial game known as modern society.

our desire to have big houses, shiny new cars and so on traps us in this un-merry-go-round and most only discover the truth when they have to retain a lawyer to keep what they thought was actually thiers in the first place........

what we percieve to be our right to property ownership, political representation, police protection, etc. is a myth that is only shattered by the hard truth of real-time experience.

the truth is that we work for the right to remain in place.

if we remain in place anyway then we have to work less, without the stress of "keeping up" and hoping that our investments and insurance and retirement funds will be substantial when our bodies fail to be able to sustain the rate necessary to earn enough to keep our shit.

ask any retired person what they really know.

many are beginning to realise the truth after years of struggle to attain the "dream" fed us in our youth.........and sadly those who do realise will join thier parent`s generation of dissapointment as they age toward retirement.

or opt out now and begin to enjoy life......in the moment.

eh?

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/hughes/29052

all women with long nails, or just some women with long nails, or just the woman quoted?

i would have thought that most women would have been bright enough to figure a work-around for such a problem.......such as not owning the stupid phone in the first place.

jeez.

apple would be foolish to ignore the large market of women with long nails who use cell-phones, and i`m sure they are working feverishly to find a remedy.

on the other hand, it`s possible that women with long nails could effect a look whereby one nail is kept deliberately short so as to facilitate the use of thier trendy tele-communication device, sending a signal to the herd that not only are they hip but bright enough to solve a difficult problem.

now, if only they could drink, drive, talk and watch sex in the city on the overhead dvd screen at the same time...........

chris?

sadly.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080623/us_nm/carlin_dc

the world is a less funny place today after george carlin dies at age 71.

george was best known for the seven words you can`t say on television.

they are as follows; shit, piss, fuck, cunt, motherfucker, cocksucker, and tits.

so lets look closely at these words for a moment and see where the problem may lie.

the first two, shit and piss, are common bodily functions that, while mostly a private matter, are mostly innocuous, unless you have a personal problem with such functions that you may have acquired during your formative years. in which case you could be chronically religious, an accountant, or a member of a broadcast standards committee.

cunt, motherfucker and cocksucker are descriptive of processes of sexuality, and while the terms aren`t particularly elegant, they describe some of my favorite things. she has one, i am one, and i look forward to the act with a fondness that i have for little else.

finally, the word tits. come on people, we were all born to feed at the breast. to refer to them is a homage to nurture and sustenance. to image one is to be at once fed and stimulated.

i can`t think of a finer state to exist in.

thanks for the memories george.

rest in peace, you motherfucker.

more on morons.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080611/ap_on_re_eu/britain_lost_documents;_ylt=AudNzWJJZWKHtannKP3tVIjxrGIF

where to begin?

ok, firstly.......are these real or manufactured documents?

we have to see who benifits most from documents like this being left on a train.

and being "secret", who could possibly positively identify them other than other bureaucrats?

so who`s to say......

to me, the report seems too facile to be anything but a wind-up job between politicians, but who`s to say.

and entertainment for other morons to cluck on about in the office.

but.......if people in positions of authority who handle such materials are so inept as to leave papers like that on a train, then we need to really begin to mistrust these morons.

my old man worked at aldermaston in the sixties and never once spoke of anything that went on in that top secret facility other than how bureaucratic and "old school tie" everything was.....and his rationalisation was that he signed the british secrets act so he just had to not say anything to anyone.

meanwhile people are allegedly carrying top secret files around in a briefcase on a train.

hmmm.........

duh........

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080611/wl_canada_nm/canada_gamblers_col

this is known in simple terms as a game.

a game played by governments on citizens.

a game called taxation.

exploit the weak and unorganised and uninformed for fun and profit.

the last think a governement wants to do is to deter gamblers from frequenting thier facilities......especially "problem" gamblers.

but, we do it to ourselves. we aren`t strong and organised enough to stop such activities from occuring......either as individuals or in groups.

so, the government preys on it`s citizenry.

but after all, how else does government survive?

how to smile.

remember the last time.

hold that thought.

repeat.

tad vs. smidgeon.

according to micheal, my youngest boy, the difference between a tad and a smidgeon is that a tad is small but visible and a smidgeon is so small that you can`t see it with the naked eye.

now you know.

funny.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080606/ap_on_sc/japan_iea_climate_change

45 trillion?

is that before or after tax?

oh wait a minute, that is a tax.

the assumption that humans created the increase in global temperature hasn`t been proven. to put a dollar figure on solving such a problem misses this clear point.

fluctuations in solar energy emissions make far more scientific sense than the miniscule energy spike that human energy consumption contributes to the total global heat mass. very few people comment on such an obvious physical reality.

similar to pissing the ocean.......for those who need a metaphor.

and so........b

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080605/ap_on_re_as/myanmar

we read with horror the way that the burmese government is treating it`s population and can`t understand why they are turning away international aid.

the reason why we can`t understand is because we make several false assumptions regarding what is occuring.

we assume that governments have thier citizen`s best interest in mind.

we assume that life is held in high regard.

we assume that all people think like we do.

the truth is that governments, including our own, are self-serving and will protect themselves from threat.

in burma they had a nice little deal going.......a miltary dictatorship with a visible intimidation force on display constantly for the edification a small community of military and political types living off the backs of a virtual slave-labour force working to keep the holiday camp going.

this system had been ticking over for decades under the radar of the u.n. and the western press, until the cyclone hit and thousands died.

this little embarrassment brought the international media to bear on burma and it`s little game.

the burmese government`s worst nightmare would be international military and civilian forces at large in on it`s soil poking around through files and interviewing survivors and generally shedding light on the burmese junta`s game of holiday camp......so they turn aid away and thousands of people die and suffer.

like new orleans.

do you think our government is any different?

people walk the streets of our country every day suffering their own personal disaster, in numbers far larger than those in burma now, and our government puts our wealth into upgrading it`s systems and structures before it will do one thing to alleviate the suffering.

i know what you are thinking.......let them get jobs.

could you get one quickly if you lost yours?

would you take one paying less?

there is enough resources and money on the planet right now for everyone to live comfortably while factories and robots make and grow all that we need.

computers run everything now anyway and so the running of production of food and materials that way is no problem at all.

it`s happening anyway.

it`s just not for us.

our lives could be made meaningful by interacting with eachother and enoying the abundance of all that surrounds us, but instead we struggle desperately to accumilate stuff while others suffer, and our own government take a large portion of our effort and upgrades it`s systems and structures to protect it`s self agains us.

like in burma.

some words i`ve come to live by.

1) it`s much easier to ride the horse in the direction he`s going in.

2) don`t try to teach pigs to dance; you`ll get tired, and the you`ll anger the the pig.

3) politics is for politicians.

4) some lies are truer than others.

5) laughter really is the best medicine.

6) tomorrow never comes.

7) guns don`t kill people, people kill people. gun registries are for politicians. see #3

8) we create our own reality with the language we use to describe it. you are proving my point right now by saying what you are saying about this comment.

live for today.....

.....for tomorrow never comes.

and.....

fuck you too bill......

these words.......

....mean what you think they mean.

you are the god that makes the grass green.

do you believe that?

do you need to believe?

or do you just know?

days like these.

she sat there hunched over.....like a great weight was pressing on her shoulders.

she looked intently at my friend as she talked, as if he could somehow lift the burden that was not allowing her to sit upright in her chair.

as i approached i greeted my friend and smiled at her and saw the pain in her eyes.

she didn`t hold my gaze but looked away and down.

as i got my coffee she said her good-byes and in a moment was gone......and my friend told me what had happened.

her boyfriend had left her.

nothing new in that.....it happens all the time, yet we never get used to the feeling.

the tearing and tearing.

both. at the same time.

i recognised the look in her eyes and knew that she wouldn`t stay.

because she knows what i`ve been through.

nobody told me there would be days like these.......full of pain.

as much as the pain hurt, i knew that it would get better though.

and i knew looking in her eyes that she had no idea.

and if someone had told me there would be days like this i wouldn`t have understood what they meant.

something funny is going on.

in fact, it`s downright peculiar.

all of the toasters in the known universe are found on the surface of this planet, and nowhere else.

hmmm.

and so, i`m wondering.......is there a planet somewhere that contains all of the lost socks, or do they just vanish into some n-space, never to be seen again?

and for all the athiests out there, i have a question......

who made the device that made the sun?

we are..........

.............the good news.

we are the bad news.

we are the news. period.

which news do you decide to make?

plan to be disappointed at some point in the future?

plan to be happy now, and then?

in case you weren`t aware, these are all choices.

choices that take the same amount of energy.

the good ones and the bad ones.

it takes as much energy and focus to be fat as thin, rich or poor, heathy or ill.

so choose.

when we realise that we are choosing to be fat, ill and broke.......then we can stop.

and choose to be thin, healthy and rich.

or any point in between.

there are no superhumans. none able to work 24 hours a day, or lift 10,000 pounds, or run 200 miles an hour.

some people just think differently.

they think thin, healthy and rich......

.....and thier lives resonate with the thought.

and the reverse is true also.

but it is tragic that most think that the reverse is the only reality.

moved by the thrill of the upcoming day.

the football match to come.....

the smiles.

the running.

the scoring of goals.

and the opportunity to share with someone special.

compatability.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080514/ap_on_re_us/cat_personality

finally, a news article containing good news.

and it reminds me of how we find ourselves with someone that we have feelings for that we aren`t compatable with, yet we persist in trying to make it work.

i wish there had been a test like that for me on more than one occasion.

though there is plentyoffish.......

where i met someone so remarkably compatable with me that i`m still in shock.

she actually likes who i am.

and as much as i dislike (feel uncomfortable about?) dating sites, i have to say that sometimes they work to find someone to be happy with.

so today it`s all good for cats and people.....who act like a fish for a while.

that`ll help.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080515/wl_africa_afp/zimbabweeconomyforex

when will people realise that politics is for politicians........

celebration.

in the midst of turmoil and challenge we can find a reason celebrate.

in fact we must.

the simple fact that something magical and wonderous is occuring around us all the time.......is reason enough to be filled with joy.

even for a moment.

and that moment of elation is enough.

that moment sweeps everything else away.

you know it does.

a smile.

the sight of a flock of geese, like fighter jets flying low.

the perfect cup of coffee.

to ride like the wind.

to know you will fall in love agian.

because you will.

why do we blog?

age old question.

the blog is a modern form of the journal. it allows us to write things down as they come so that we can externalise our thoughts and see them in a different light.

this process lets us see different ways of coping with what sometimes becomes too difficult to handle otherwise.

the past few years have been a time of transition for me, from one form of existance to another.

a metamorphosis.

this blog has been a chronicle of the transition.

one day i will let my children read parts, as they come to thier own challenges, and hopefully it will provide a different dimension for them as they grow into men.

many have read bits, and followed chapters, and commented and helped as they could, and some have come out of judgement found thier "proof" without asking......and i`m ok with that because the benifits i recieve far outweigh the loss of the consideration of those sorts.

this blog is a filter. a test. a work in progress and a celebration.

this blog contains a major part of my life, and i go back and read entries from years ago and remember them like it was now.

like the friend you have known for years who doesn`t judge, but remembers........

a man once said to me as we struggled to get through something we were doing.

he said "we are stronger than we think we are".

this is one way of proving that.

the mind.

the mind is what we are training. the body just follows blindly along.

what we decide to do, in our mind, makes our bodies go.

when we realise this we begin to prepare our mind more carefully.....

otherwise the careless mind puts the stupid robot body in harm`s way.

the pictures we show ourselves and the voices we hear in our heads make us feel things in our bodies as commands, sensations and emotions.

what pictures are you choosing to show yourself?

just a dream.

i saw the warm green grass under the stade of the tree and lay down for a moment to rest.

i dreamed of the touch of her skin against mine.

real.......

and as always i reached for her and failed.

she knows this, and waits.

strange energy.

there was, and still is, a strange energy about the town today.

i rode into starbucks looking to see if her car was there and saw that the coast was clear, and got a bagel.

by the time i put my hand on the door of the coffee shop i noticed her going in the inside door ahead of me.............

another opportunity to use my jedi mastery (for fuck`s sake...why didn`t it work before it was too late?)

so wtf? why is it that we are continually doing this?

my games, her games, what. the. fuck.

i am grateful that the wound has healed at least superficially and that i can function normally, for the most part.

i find myself going over so much of what we did and said together and it is so alien to me that a woman would choose to do what she did.

a short period on a dating site (plenty of fish.) allowed me the distict pleasure of meeting a woman who is as into me as i am into her. we have enjoyed two dates together, and i will see her again tonight.

and there are no buts.

no looking back.

and the strange energy of the town was evident on the roads.

apparently there was an accident on the highway and there was about double the normal traffic on the roads.

it was sunny though and my spirits were high and that`s the main thing.

and i`m looking forward to seeing my new friend tonight.......

the scientist in his lab.

i saw her again yesterday.

and yes, my heart lept. but i dropped myself down into a relaxed state and unattached to the thought of her and my heart rate dropped and i went back to my conversation........and i saw something new.

i saw a nervous uncertain girl who couldn`t look over without fiddling with her glasses and her hair as she stood in the line getting her coffee.

i didn`t miss that nervous girl.

this is the nervous girl who ran from a perfect thing. i never saw the nerves.

i felt it. but i ignored it because everything else felt so good.

so now i`m asked to recieve something from this beautiful new one, and i have to find my center to recieve.

otherwise i`m no better than the first one and the new one will get hurt.

life is too perfect and beautiful for that to happen on my shift again.

so, here`s the thing...

i had these feelings for a woman that, when she left, made me feel like i was going to die.

and so i go and find another one to be with to see if it will stop the pain......and it does when i`m with her, but the moment i am fifty feet away from her, the pain returns.

but the one i met last night erased the slate entirely.

this morning i woke up and tried to access the pain, and it just flickered for a moment in my chest and stopped......as if it lost it`s will.

i`m not complaining in the least, but as a scientist i`m fascinated now at the pure neuro-chemical element of all of this.

is love a drug?

when i was on the drug of her the world was a place to play and live at first, but it quickly became something i desperately needed, like heroine, and i became a junkie....needing a fix and the world became dark and lonely and full of fear when she wasn`t around.

so i went cold turkey.

days of agony ensued.

and when i saw her occasionally the dependency rushed in, convincing me that i needed to get away from her.

i shake my head at the desperation of such a situation, and how it consumed my existance for months.

i know now how men stalk and beg and plead with women when they feel this way, not realising that the only answer is to go cold turkey.

you can`t beat an addiction by doing the drug.

but is replacing the drug with another one the answer?

it feels like it this morning.

match day 1.

it was a brilliant clear spring morning with a light breeze coming in off the lake.

we descended there to the stadium by the lake to do battle in pantomime with colours and studded boots on show.

and did we show.

to the crowd of twenty we ran and passed and shot and scored and came away winners 7-2.

the promise of a season of victory hung in the clear spring air as we greeted the final whistle.

and my ham-strings remained intact, thanks to my resistance to opening up fully to the urge to go flat out past the defenders.....though my ego suffered a thousand deaths each time.

and so the wait is over, the long winter without my game has passed, and the battle is once again joined.

kisses and bullets.

both can effect lives immesurably.

we have to be very careful who we choose to kill......

...or kiss.

may is here......

..........and with is comes the grass and the sun and the game i love the most.

there are many games that humans play....many are unconscious to the players.

games within games within games.

and i`m no different.

i love the dynamics of human interaction and the sheer poetry of the depth of it all.

games are joined and played for so many reasons, as many reasons are there are grains of sand on the shore.

and so to my favorite game.

football, or as they call it in north america, soccer.

to me this game brings people together as all good art does, and stirs the imagination. and with it the soul.....

the soul, once stirred becomes transcendant.

all week i prepare mentally and physically so that i can be the best i can on match day, so that i can run, pass and shoot as part of a team decision to win.

and for 90 minutes i can achieve perfection.

closure?

i told her that i missed her hand in mine when we walked together.

she said she did too, but that she felt safer if we were just friends.

safer?

i can`t be angry, even though it would make things easier to deal with.

i can`t dare be sad, or it will just go on forever.

her words made my blood run cold, the way she was so indifferent.

how the fuck do we get this way?

the grass.

there was a field here once.

there were rocks and rivers and streams and birds and flowers and animals.......and they are mostly still here.

and we came along and because we are not well adaped to living in harmony with nature as it exists, we have to build shelter and manipulate crops and livestock to survive.

so where the field once was there became a house and paths and gardens and farms and so on.

men made metal things and wooden things and pretty soon the paths became tracks and men threw down stones to allow a better surface to run carts on.

then one day some men build cars and found that the gravel paths were limiting to the will to move things faster.

so some other men melted some stuff in a big pot and poured it all over the gravel paths and made smooth flat roads for these new cars to go quickly on.

and here we are today with these smooth flat roads and parking-lots everywhere so that cars can come and go everywhere that used to be fields.

but when we rest for a while and stop pouring hot melted stuff on the fields and pathways regularly.....the fields come back.

look down sometime when you aren`t too fucking busy with whatever bullshit you are after and see in the cracks of the pavement.

really take a moment to look.

the grass is growing up from underneath the pavement and pushing ever so slowly but determinedly with it`s delicate shoots, against the underside of men`s best attempt to cover the fields and control nature for his needs........driving and parking cars.

each little bud does it`s small yet invaluable part to recreate what was once there.

the fields and streams and rocks and dirt and rivers and streams.

and if this process is allowed to go on long enough, the grass wins and the man-made surfaces are split and cracked and otherwise destroyed so that nature is restored.

it is a constant struggle of man against nature, and man gets tired eventually.....as an individual and as a society, and quickly the grass takes over again.

lawns overgrow and roads and pavements crack and trees grow through walls and roofs and buildings an highways crumble and collapse.

it`s happened before and it`s happening now.

relax.

there is nothing to be afraid of though.

it`s the way it`s supposed to be.

to open up.

what better way to celebrate a day like today than by opening up to love.

with each beating of the drum of our heartbeat we recognise more of everything around us......

boom.

boom.

boom.

the small white clouds formed in impossible perfection, hanging like cotton in the bright blue sky of this perfect morning.

boom.

the sound of children playing, running, laughing and screaming with joy in the playground outside my window.

boom.

the thought of the adventures of the day to come and the people we will meet and the smiles we will share.

boom.

what else rushes in when we open ourselves up?

boom.

boom.

boom.

boom.

boom.

we listen to our heart beating long enough to allow the whole universe to rush on in and through our souls, and we become.....no, we remember that we are......part of this miracle called life.

the calm.

as the seas roil and swell with the pulse of energy rising we are swept along for the ride.

this powerlessness we feel when caught up in something as powerful as the ocean it`s self can be terrifying when we try to make the feeling stop.

our will to control makes our ability to deal with these feelings that much more difficult to bear.

the alternative is to let go of the need to control and predict when the next wave will rise and lift us up or when the next trough will drag us down intot he depths.

because it doesn`t matter whether we are high or low.

nothing lasts forever.

but things do return.

so enjoy the highs and rest during the lows.

and find a calm center to enjoy all of it.

toxic?

toxic.

a word i`ve heard entirely too much of lately.

it is too easy and typical of modern throw-away society to discard something with a facile comment.

toxic.

what about patience and understanding and hope and belief in love?

toxic?

everyone seems to know something about this toxic state and how to avoid it.

but they are unable to look me in the eye when i ask them about love.

have we reached a point where society believes love it`s self is toxic?

i somehow get the sense that people would prefer to remain in some holding pattern of unattachment to feelings, just in case......

......sort of what she is being accused of b some.

i am.......

..........icarus, and i discovered a way to fly high.

but the sun melted the wax that fixed the feathers to my arms so that i could soar so high.............and down i fell, crashing into the dust.

the moment i hit i saw the error in my plan and the solution flashed before me.

now i am healing from my injuries and have plans for a better way to fix feathers to my arms that doesn`t include wax.

and so i will once again swoop and sail and dive and climb and soar on wings of my own design.

those who stand below while i fly are so certain i will fall, and each time i come tearing down to earth they are proven right, and they warn me never to attempt such foolishness again.

but they forget one thing, these sensible and pragmatic men.

i fucking flew.

the chase?

whoever said the the chase is better than the catch isn`t a carnivore.

essence vs. character.

when you meet someone and spend time with them daily for a period of time, you get a sense of who they are.

you see them do things and hear them speak of things and act and react to situations, and so pretty soon you can say you know a person.

obviously this process of getting to know someone never stops, and suprises and challenges arise because people are complex and mysterious, even to themselves.

but there are two things going on here. two seperate "people" inside both of you as you travel along together.

there is essence and character.

i call the true nature of who we are when we are born our essence. the pure undiluted you and me. that which comes out over time and is what we strive to discover by "knowing ourselves."

the essence is what shines out brightly to those who are centered and grounded enough to pay attention.

then there is character. to me character is the accumilation of pre-suppositions about what reality, life, love and everything else is about.

lies.

these pre-suppositions are mostly the ideas of others based on consensus from history and are false.

why do i say this?

becaue they are judgements of someone else`s experience in the past with different situations and people and so cannot be applied to the current situation in anything but the most general of ways.

so our character is made of convenient falsities to allow us to quickly draw conclusions about things and move on.

and 99.999% of the lies are functional enough to be so near to being true as to be virtually the same.

so our character gets us through the day and let`s our head hit the pillow at night ready for sleep.

but what happens when we cannot rest and all of our lies have been revealed?

we have to fall back to our essence.

the pure truth.

it takes work, because the lies are easy to believe.....in fact people demand you lie to them...and so to break the chain of lies takes work, anguish, tears, bargaining, begging and finally after fatigue and exhaustion claims you.......

....understanding.

and even then the understanding still can be painful.

but it is better by far than the lies.

two people who share something in essence find love.

the lies slip away unjudged and un-needed.

all of the character breaks down and dissolves because it has no function in intimacy.

no ego necessary. no bullshit. no negotiation for winners and losers.

just a pure meshing of the soul.

two becoming one.

today`s lesson for me.

to let life flow around me. the good, the bad and the ugly.

to realise that things are on purpose and magical and somehow deliberately mysterious.........

.....not so much for a reason, because reason is an intellectual construct, but because it just is.

we cannot know what it is like to be anything other than what we are right now, and if we manage to know something else, we have then become that thing.

so my meditation today is about acceptance and loving myself unconditionally and being grateful for so many things.

surfaces.

so what`s inside a brick?

well break it in half and we`ll find out......right?

no.

we have just created more surfaces to look at.

the brick we`ve broken in half may reveal things caught in the mixture of brick that made it, but those things are made of more surfaces.

this surface we reveal reduces to the point where we find less and less stuff that will stand still long enough to even be identified.

the smaller the thing who`s surface we look at gets, the faster it tends to be moving relative to us.

(you`ll have to excuse me for this thought but i`ve been reading richard fyneman`s autobiography and, well........he makes you think.)

dry, silent tears.

you are surrounded by tears.

they flow when i come near.

dry and silent. they flow.

this is not my natural state. but yet i find myself crying now.

please cry, so i don`t have to any more.

i know i ask too much.

tool.

10,000 days.

grateful.

these walls.

they know the truth.

they hold the key, but they are not saying.

they`ve seen it all and stood by.

mute witness.

and so they remain.

they provide no comfort as would a friend who knew, yet somehow there is an echo, faint yet clear.....of what was then.

moments of us held in pure truth that cannot be denied or revised or edited or deleted.

merely recorded.

these walls.

but all too soon i will stop listening myself, and only the walls will know.

held forever.

the hawk.

i watched him soar.

high above the highway, riding the warm spring heat as it rose off the ever spreading concrete and ashpalt of our city, the bird never stopped looking.....searching for what he needed.

food.

relentless.

not asking why or how or why again, just doing.

the relentless pursuit of one thing is intoxicating in it`s simple beauty.

i watched him for what seemed like an eternity, circling and gliding and looking, and i realised that beyond all of our self-absorbed thinking we are precisely the same.

relentless in our pursuit.

except that we have to ask why.

steven, dude......

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/primitivealienlifemayexiststephenhawkingsays

so, only primative alien life?

so how do you make the distinction steven......?

us non-astro-physicists see no logic in your observation.

you feel it`s safe to say that there might be bugs under a rock on saturn, but no technologically advanced civilisation on pluto, merely hiding from insane humans.

alrighty then stevo......

er.....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080420/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_clashing_christians

i didn`t realise you could pummel someone with a palm frond, but i guess if you are intent on conflict, anything can be a weapon.

accepting.

the pain we experience in certain situations is a form of energy stuck inside.

we try to find a reason why we are in pain and once a reason is found we hold that reason responsible.

and so, because our word is absolute in this world, the reason becomes a fact.

and the pain remains.

but here is the issue.

if you are pushed by someone, do you blame them and hold them responsible for your fall?

but how do you know why they pushed you?

and do they?

this chain of pushes goes back forever, and we can never know the reason why the first push happened......so blame does nothing.....but continue to have us stuck in the pain.

so, how do we unstick?

remain in the pain without judgement for a while, until the feeling passes, like it does.

like it would had you reacted.

only when you reacted the pain continued and you passed more painful energy along in the process.

so when you don`t react the cycle stops with you.

a problem.

a thousand times i have ridden the logical un-merry-go-round of a problem i have been caught in.

the problem has stolen my sleep and left me strained beyond my ability to function, to think or to begin to enjoy life at all, and so i have finally ended the process.

it is so against my nature to give up and turn the other way, but i have no other choice otherwise it will begin to wear me down irrepairably.

i packed everything about this problem into a box and shut the lid, in my mind.

then my life started again.

i heard the birds singing in the trees and it liftedmy soul.

i enjoyed my children`s laughter as we played in the park.

and i heard the music on the radio.

led zeppelin`s "rock and roll" came as a gift of such immeasurable joy, when i heard it on my friend`s car radio, that all i could do was play air drums and imagine john bonham hitting the skins so many years ago......

.....and i went to that place where all people go when we transcend the physical.

and i am so grateful.

since i`ve been loving you.......

http://www.songmeanings.net/lyric.php?lid=7758

deeply passionate piece of blues that sings of the pain of betrayal, not only in the lyrics but with the drums, bass and guitar.

and as this chapter of my life winds away down, the song will remain......and not remind me, so much as inspire me to heal.

i remember my brother some years ago deciding that he`d heard enough of me lamenting over something i was going on about and he hit the cd player and fired up achilles last stand.

i forgot my worries then and as i think of that tune it does the same thing now.

sadness.

there are those who sing happy songs and those who sing sadder ones.

why is that?

experiences, i suppose.

the miles we walk shape us, and so the songs we sing reflect that.

i am an optimist in that i know the sun will rise tomorrow, though some days will be cloudy at best.

i have always felt a deep regard for the blues.

it`s not even an understanding of the words or the inflection of the voices so much as the mood of the music it`s self.

country music has a sad message traditionally, in some ways similar to the blues, but does little for me as i`m irritated by the busy noises made by the musicians.

the guitar, bass and drums of the blues evoke trains leaving the station, love betrayed and loneliness, and from my early childhood i was transported somewhere at the sound.

i can remember hearing led zeppelin doing "since i`ve been loving you" as a boy of thirteen of fourteen and i lost all sense of time and space standing that night on my back patio in the rain as the outdoor speakers carried jimmy page`s guitar to my ears.

i taught my oldest boy to play the beginning of that tune on the guitar and when he plays it the feeling is the same.

christine marion stood beside me that night waiting for the kiss that never came, because the music took me to a place where she couldn`t go......though we did finally kiss some other night.....i was incapable then.

is it a sadness?

who knows. i just know that, like robert plant says, "a minute seems like a lifetime, when i feel this way."

acceptance.

we are machines designed to do things.

our bodies are engineered to run and lift and twist things and bend them and make things into other things, to dig ditches and use tools to make shelter and make tools to help us in our endevours.

our minds are designed to solve problems and imagine things that don`t exist yet but become real if we put our minds and bodies to the problem.

so we are "doing" machines.

doing is all that we know.

and this is what gets us into trouble in certain situations.

sometimes there is nothing we can do and no picture we can see in our mind that will change a situation and yet we persist....because that`s all we know.

so we continue on until we collapse from mental and physical exhaustion.

and so we finally find that being is preferable to doing in some situations.

the human doing is a robot running on programs and beliefs.

the human being on the other hand is a loving, compassionate spirit that can accept situations and let them pass.

the human doing is programmed by experience and trauma.

the human being is the essence of who we were born as.

when we remember our essence then things are ok.

so we must remember so we can accept that which we cannot change. those things that we should not even try........

a miraculous day.

the universe reminded me of something today.

what it was like to be warm.

i walked by the lake and got some sun as the thermometer crept toward 70 degrees.

and so yeah, the warmth of the sun brings a promise of growth and new beginnings.

conditional.

the opposite of unconditional.

the conditions are many, and most are about oppression.......not for the greater good, but for the comfort of the few.....while the masses are controlled.

when it comes to love the situation is the same.

conditional love is the one that causes the pain.

the unconditional one lifts one up.

the question then remains.

how can we love someone else unconditionally?

by accepting who they are.

and if they aren`t in a place of unconditional love for themselves, then they will bind you to conditions also.

and the universe will test you.

oh how it likes to test you.

regular programming.

the regular programming was about unconditional love for the self.

oh how i had forgotten.

how does this unconditional love for the self work?

like this.

no matter what happens, do nothing to harm the self.

when we pump energy into this by breathing in body and spirit we attract that which resonates with this.

how do we breathe in body and in spirit?

by sitting quietly and physically breathing and watching our thoughts go by and letting them float off as we just........breathe.

so i am getting back to this now with my sleeves rolled up and stalking that precious joy of the the certain knowledge that i`m in the universe of abundance with a front row seat.

what remains while we sit and breathe and let the noise go is the unconditional love for the self.

perfect peace and tranquility.

the universe.

i got off my game and started doubting the universe and it got right back to proving it`s self to me in it`s same old staggering and beautiful way.

and what`s even more amazing is that it included me even though i got fearful and full of doubt.

challenges, lessons and new chances at the realisation that this is all on purpose and i just have to remember to allow myself to flow along resonating with the perfection.

the same messageboards and numbers and co-incedances of perfect timing have been happening and the people saying the right thing at the right time to snap my head around and wake me up, just as the pain and fear tried to drag me down and away from the glory.

and the dream last night.....well actually this morning, of the four dogs sitting on a blanket......meaningless to those who haven`t been this way recently, but to the three others who have been in this with me from the beginning, it is all blindingly clear.

we are precisely and perfectly on the pathway.

fuckin` a.......

and now we return you to regularly sceduled programs.

i am speechless.

i haven`t posted here for a long time.

i have been following another path for the last few months and enjoying a new sense of vigour in life, love and commerce, but something i recently heard shocked me so profoundly that i had to type it here and read it over to try to make some sense of it somehow.

two people met and enjoyed hours of conversation together over coffee. nothing unusual there.

nothing unusual in that they would find eachother more and more often and become hopeful of catching eachother casually.......for coffee.

one day the woman asked the man if he would be interested in meeting somewhere other than the coffee shop, and he agreed.

they met, kissed and fell in love in a few short weeks.

again, nothing unusual there....my dear friends.

he then, one evening in the heat of passion, says that he`s falling in love....and she says don`t.

she then says that she has a dilemma.

she had an affair some years ago with a married man and that she promised him that if he ever left his wife that she would be there for him......

the married guy had seen the two lovers together and reminded her of her promise and that he is leaving his wife april 30th.

she then says she still wants to keep seeing him until april 30th when the other guy has officially left.

he says no, of course, and goes away.....misses her, and calls the next day and starts it all up again.

he lasts another day and says to her don`t come back until you have dealt with the other guy.

she says don`t be so dramatic and encourages him to keep seeing her like they were.

what does he now think?

he thinks she has made a decision to let the other guy go.

they spend every waking available moment together going biking, grocery shopping and just sittting close over coffee.

she tells him she has fallen in love with him one night on the phone, and his heart leaps.

this goes on for three more weeks until he asks again about the state of thier relatonship.........and she hasn`t changed one single thing in her mind.

he breaks it off that night.

i have read this over so many times trying to make sense of it, and it follows no line of reasoning, other than pain.

can love be that frightening and painful that this sort of thing persists?

i remain optimistic that love can conquer all, including such tragedy......

oh shit.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080319/ap_on_re_us/tiger_attacks

tigers do what they always do......

it`s people who think that laws can over-ride nature....human or otherwise.

if not for the tragedy of the loss of human life, the article would be funny.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080318/ap_on_re_as/china_tibet

ah, we learn lots about slingmud from round-eye.

the dalai lama and the chinese priemier will be appearing on celebrity boxing next week on the card with danny bonawhatshisface vs. david hasslehof and chelsea clinton vs. pink.....

chelsea, wear a mouth guard honey, and keep the legs moving.

duh....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20080317/sc_space/iocreatesspotsonjupiter

and the global warming assholes know this shit, yet they continue to suggest that shifts in the temperature of our planet is caused by industry.

like pissing in the sea creates tides on foriegn shores.........

yeah, but......

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080311/pl_afp/usvote

she has a point.

dumbass.

http://sports.yahoo.com/golf/pga/news?slug=ap-golfer-birdkilled&prov=ap&type=lgns

the golfer, and the investigators who dug the bird up......

http://www.citizensugar.com/1093812

like most extreme positions, global warming is virtually indistinguisable from a religion.

it has the same popes, bishops and priests and congregations and fanatics.

and as with most extreme positions the pendulum they swing on eventuay comes to the end of it`s swing and begins to start on it`s way back the other way.

like feminism, for instance.

www.mensacademy.com

ok, let`s get political......

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080305/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/colombia_farc_laptop

so, is it ok to call us white folks gringos?


or should we nuke chavez now?

new website.

www.mensacdemy.com.

to promote the gentlemen`s arts. and those gentle women who wish to join us.

meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=3084

and why is it that the new boss is the same as the old boss?

several factors.

resonance.

resonance.

resonance.

the latin temprament is parternalistic and inflamatory, tyrannical and self-loathing.

my definition of bull-fighting may shed light on this.

bullfighting; a game designed by bulls to gore angry little spaniards in the ass.

i have met many spaniards who are cultured, gentle, family-oriented men with a passion for life......yet the fact remains, dictatorship and tyranny is in their mother`s milk.

(shit, maybe it`s her fault.)

dipshit.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080224/ap_on_el_pr/nader

stubborn tiresome dipshit.

dog-in-the-manger.

wanker.

narrow-minded twit.

god bless him.

he reminds me of a friend of mine i used to make the mistake of playing pool with.

he would smash the balls around and sink one or two, ruining any shape i might have had.

ralphy-boy fucks up any strategy these other twits might possibly have had, costs the tax-payer many untold millions of extra dollars in the process, and goes miles toward exposing politics as the farce it really is.

not that it does any good.

look at italian politics for instance.

priorities.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080222/ap_on_re_ca/odd_sweden_fish_in_space

ok, now i get it.

i wondered why, even though i liked to solve problems and make things work better, that i never became a scientist.

it`s because i`m not a dumbass.

muscular, sporty little fish?

sticky subject.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20080214/us_time/howtomakegreatteachers

high school for me was difficult. not academically, but because the i didn`t get along with most of my teachers.

there are some who would say that it wasn`t my position to be "getting along", so much as doing the work......but here we are.

it was my feeling then that most teachers were determined to have the students "get" knowledge as a by-product of them merely showing up each day and regurgitating the material. some students seemed to be able to learn by this and so became the ones the teachers responded to.

the teachers i learned from were the ones who took the time to find out who we were as individuals.

i recently went to my high school reunion, and apart from the celebration and re-aquantance with friends and the building it`s self, i was struck by the fact that the feelings i had toward my teachers then were confirmed when i saw them again.

regarding the above article, i`m not even sure that the teachers who taught me 35 years ago were in a union, but the fact they are now complexifies an already sticky issue.


should they be paid on merit?

well, it would even the playing field certainly, and sort out the arrogant pedagogues who minister to the select few of like mind.

the two combined.

http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/sisyphus/section7.rhtml

who would have thought; a german and a french philospher in agreement.

family day.

http://www.thestar.com/News/Ontario/article/303895

y`know, i was pressed to remember why this all sounded familiar to me. the idea of shops and factories and schools being closed for the express purpose of families being together for an entire day.......

.....and then it hit me.

we used to call that sunday.

well dalton, thanks buddy. from the bureaucrats that brought us spiralling divorce, single-motherhood, family court snaggles that last until the money runs out and the revisiting of rights for children, now we have the new sunday.

now, mcguinty isn`t entirely to blame for this. he isn`t bright enough by far to entirely wrest society from the control of the church. he`s merely the one pushed to the front to pitch it to the public.

this process has been on the go for generations, probably for the last 1500 years or so, and is a constant struggle, one that was clearly adressed in the declaration of independance in america....not that it did much good.

we are coerced at gun-point after all.

just as the agents of the law in our community.

torture.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080211/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_sept_11_trial

as x-dell so well put in an earlier comment, torture is best used for indoctrination, and that any information gained through this method would be unreliable at best for the simple fact that you will say pretty much anything if you think you are going to die.

it begs the question.

why torture these prisoners and then try them in miltary court if you know the evidence is virtually useless?

indoctrination?

why?

all that is left for me to deduce is that it is you and i that are being indoctrinated as we are tortured while reading and hearing reports of this type of treatment of prisoners.

If waterboarding or other torture methods were conducive to better intelligence, then that would be a far more difficult decision. But because of the cellular structure of information and autonomy that goes on in fabianistic tatics, there isn't really much intelligence to be gained, and that which you do have will probably be more misleading than not. After all, a person under physical duress will tell you anything you want to hear, and not necessarily the truth.

Torture is only really useful for indoctrination, and some of these techniques the US wants to utilize have been explored by Margaret Singer, Richard Ofshe, and other shrinks.

confabulate.

verb
1.
unconsciously replace fact with fantasy in one's memory
2.
talk socially without exchanging too much information; "the men were sitting in the cafe and shooting the breeze"

i like words. i have been criticised for using long ones occasionally when short ones would do, but i disagree. sometimes the longer ones have meaning that the short ones don`t.

and i enjoy the ambiguity.

sort of........

i was reminded of the word confabulate in a discussion with david jacobs, an investigator into the reports by some of alien abductions.

he felt that the majority of reports contained confabulations.

i have news for david.

all reports of human behaviour contain confabulations.

and the subsequent analysis.

and so to politics.

or, the leading of the lambs to the slaughter.........(again.)

waterboarding.

the recent discussions in the media about the utilising of waterboarding in the questioning of suspected terrorists has drawn some issues into focus for me.

granted that we all feel that torture is reprehensible, but for many the thought of terrorists running loose to kill people is equally so.....

so therin lies the moral and ethical paradox.

what does the greater harm?

thankfully i`m not being asked to make those sorts of decisions.

but something else struck me as i read a headline about the cia suggesting that waterboarding may be illegal.

does this mean that this form of torture immediately becomes as reprehensible to these people as it does to you and i, or merely that it becomes legally actionable as an offence.

i wonder how these people can function as normal people when thier brains are trained to think legally all day.

similarly, do newscasters talk to thier families the same way as they talk on t.v.?

and do they comb thier hair that way on week-ends?

the new man.

http://the-brand-new-man.blogspot.com/

well, as a chapter ends in a man`s life so a new one begins.

during the last five years of my life i wanted to do one thing. show people how to do some of the things that i knew how do do....

because when you know how, it`s easy.

the desire to do this simple thing cost me a relationship and a home and a family.

so be it.

the link above is the begining of my work to show men how to create states where they can have comfortable conversations with women.

in the near future i will begin lecturing on this topic and taking on clients with this focus in mind.

this work is as important to me as weight loss and stop smoking and any other work that i do because it decides the future state of relationships.

for men and women both.

much has been said about the field of "how to pick up women", and most of it negative.

this has been the attitude of feminists, misogynists and the sensationalist nature of media it`s self, and often the methods that teachers in this field advocate.

but doesn`t a man, or a woman, deserve to have choice and flexibility in meeting people?

why settle for someone who treats you poorly and doesn`t look after themselves either?

anyway, check out the postings on the link above and let me know what you think.

men and women both.

england all-stars 2007.

in the proud tradition of champions........the england team for 2007.

even though this is for fun and raising money for charity, there is nothing like the feeling of wearing the three lions shirt.

and to have a 25 degree day in october just makes it all the more special.

oh yeah, and we beat the world all-stars 7-1 too. sweet.

er.........

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080127/ap_on_fe_st/odd_stolen_crown;_ylt=AsXMuBr8DAgTZ1rhxxJLOIAuQE4F


ok, so what is a bishop doing with a $10.000 crown, and what is it doing in his car, left unattended while he`s at dinner?

i`m not a big fan of organised religion and this sort of thing just goes to my point that these bureaucrats are so out of touch that they swan about in gold and jewels while some of thier parishoners can`t afford to feed thier families while donating money to support this perverse behaviour.

fuckwits.

cultural insensitivity.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080126/sc_afp/australiajapanwhaling_080126180938

i love the language these different groups use to claim thier position.

the japanese claim that whaling is a part of their lives and thier culture.

it`s commerce guys.

like us in the west.....

........raising cows for meat.

could you imagine a militant environmental group from india freaking on texans?

i have always had issues with the arrogance of enviros.....and greenforce (um, peace?) is a good example of this.

the sea shepherd conservation society?

greenforce wants to distance it`s self from it`s (more) militant cousin while cruising the oceans of the world together, merrily interfering with legal (i didn`t say moral or ethical) whaling and jeopardising the lives of japanese fishermen, who, lest we forget.....are people too.

so, while we raise millions of cows for beef and protect our borders with laws and military the japanese aren`t afforded the same luxury.

discuss........

new year`s resolutions re-visited.

did you make a resolution this year?

how is it holding up?

i made the resolution to drop the things that weren`t effective and postive in my life.....

and it`s remarkable what made it across that barrier and how relationships changed and how my life has become a different place (?) as a result.

i called my life a place in the last paragraph.

i wonder why i chose that particular way of characterising it.

i want to say my life is a movie in process on the big screen.

i want to say my life is one of magic and intrigue and adventure.

so i will.

and it is.

my life isn`t a place. it isn`t stationary and immovable and limited to one way of existance.

it`s a flowing, living organic process, full of challenges and wonder and excitement.

that`s the space my new year`s resolution has created.

fascination.

are you?

fascinated?

what makes you go if you are not fascinated?

the electrons firing out from my computer screen are hitting the pick-ups from my guitar and are making crackling sounds in my amplifier.

certain processes within the computer are making different types of crackling sounds come out of the the amp.

i`m fascinated.

stupid people.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080119/ap_on_re_us/tiger_attacks



let`s get this one straightened out before we proceed.

animals don`t entertain the same thought processes as humans.

for them it`s simple, basic and consistant.

tigers kill other animals for food.

if you are going to act like food, you`re gonna get killed.

the animal wasn`t getting pissed off, she was provided with an opportunity to eat.

i know if i was a big cat i would get wholeheartedly sick of being thrown sirloin all day long off a long stick, and would be dying to tear into something live and moving.......even if it was a tourist.

the main reason why people get hurt by animals is because they make tactical errors.

the majority of people who assert theselves behind thick glass or heavy duty fences by making jestures and yelling are ignored comprehensively.

for the most part you can bang on the glass and yell and jump up and down all you want and the cat will yawn, fart and otherwise go on with being top of the food chain.

the fuckwits in question failed to remain out of the cat`s reach, and got torn apart for thier efforts.

that`s why they call them stupid people.

and i bet they have had at least one conversation with a lawyer since.

clowns.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080118/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_britain_clowns

my two children, boys 9 and 11 both said that they found clowns weird and my youngest said he thought they were scary.

they added santa, one or two of thier school teachers, steve from across the street and one soccer coach and boy scout leaders who wear shorts to the list.

razor sharp perception from my two.

bike ride.

i rode to milton yesterday. the ride is mostly hills and valleys and made me realise how much i missed this type of riding, as i mostly ride on the flat in town and into toronto.

the weather was perfect for a winter ride. just a few degrees above freezing and little wind to speak of.

as i climbed up and out of suburbia for the first time in, well, i forget the last time i was away from the tract homes and consumer traffic......i realised how much i missed the raw landscape that i was now surrounded by.

the mystical envelope that now enveloped me was made up of rock faces and pine trees and two lane black top and my shifting neurology due to the much missed exertion due to pushing the pedals.

i felt a drawing into all of this existance and a certain knowledge of my place as included, accepted and welcomed.

i laughed outloud a few times is i cranked up the hills and around the twists and bends into the creekbeds and across the edge of the escarpment that seperates the lakeside communities from the halton hills......and soon i emerged into the new emerging community of milton, the new bedroom community for the teeming metropolis to the west, toronto.

the same suburban spasm that is occuring in burlington is also occuring in milton with equal intensity, and with it will bring a commercial prosperity and unprecedented growth and opportunity.

that being said, it will still be necessary to get away from it occasionally to recharge and see the futility in such an existance.

i rode back with a sort of sadness, knowing that i had to descend back into the suburban ghetto once again, but comfortable in the knowledge that the unspoiled escarpment awaits my return.

beautiful morning.

i woke this morning prematurely to the insistant digital chime of my alarm clock.

i had been up until late last night mentally pacing over the events of yesterday with it`s delightfully contrasting messages of both opportunity and anxiety.

once my eyes grew accustomed to the brightness upon my less-than-rested eyes i realised the beauty of what greeted me out the window.

the sun was shining.

that was what was so different.

we have had such unseasonably warm weather of late that most hadn`t realised that we hadn`t seen the sun in weeks.

seeing it made me realise that and i was struck by the sheer beauty of everything lit by the sun`s warming rays.

the bare trees and the roof-tops and the glowing white bricks of the apartment buildings rising out of the ground in the near distance all seemed almost surreal in this unfamiliar light.

i was smiling before i realised.

i`m sure that over time i will lose the sense of wonder of today, but for now i will immerse myself in it`s gifts.

for christ`s sake people.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080115/ap_on_sp_ba_ne/bbo_congress_steroids

we don`t have a steroid problem.

we have a bureaucrat problem.

the tiresome endless rhetoric from all sides in this witch hunt is painful to sit through....so i don`t for the most part.

but occasionally i see an article which captures the tone of the problem.

this is a huge waste of tax-payer money and a wild goose chase that will solve nothing and ruin lives into the bargain.

bureaucrat heaven.

there is not on single benifit that this process provides at the end of the day either.

it ruins careers, team morale, and artificially effects the nature of sport.

the use of steroids has been common in sport for thousands of years. the greeks and romans were aware that certain compounds derived from roots herbs would allow a man to get sronger and recover more quickly from training and injury.

just look at some of the statues in the cities of greece and rome to see my point.

this witch hunt has decimated the whole attitude of the sport of cycling, with major sponsors pulling money out of fears of damage to thier image.

and don`t tell me that people actually care about the damage athletes do to themselves with steroids.......

this is another arificially created problem that bureaucrats can then use to feather thier nests and call in thier buddies to feed also.

the athlete always seeks to gain advantage......and fair has nothing to do with it in the least.

genetics isn`t fair.

i am feet two inches tall with a 45 bpm resting heart rate. i was born with this ability. add this to my years of training and focus makes me naturally able to ride a bike and to do well at athletics that i choose to participate in.

i was always chosen first or second when picking teams.....

is this cheating?

when allowed, people always make teams comprised of the best available athletes and those athletes are genetically superior and have trained and dieted the best also.

i chose on many occasions not to do steroids because i didn`t understand them and didn`t trust the use, but many athletes that i knew did them and got noticable benifits as a result.

and there are many other substances that athletes ingest that will provide advantage, mentally and physically.

steroids will never enhance the ability of the mind though.

you can prepare the body perfectly and still fail on race day if the mind isn`t prepared.

and that 95% of the job.

but that`s another story.