28 September 2005

Don't give up, you still have friends...

If you don't view 1115.org regularly, I strongly recommend that you do. If you share my political and social leanings or, more importantly, if you don't, this is an important gateway to an increasingly marginalized community that is not susceptible to hypnosis.
This article is a good example of the insight that this site offers. Don't forget to check out some of the links, as well.

Oh, and please, no comments on the fact that marginalize cannot be used in the past tense. Just consider this a citation, Webster, and live with it!

26 September 2005

Seven Swans a swimming...in my soul!

Quick note:

Sufjan Stevens is hitting me like a ton of bricks right now.
I know it's late in the day as far as new music goes, but everything in its time, right?
I owe Brother Jacquez big props for yet another incredible gift!
Seven Swans is incredible....and Katharine, Brian and Dad might appreciate Sufjan's newest, Illinois.

Ahhhh, good times!!!

My...Self?


I've been thinking a lot lately about individuality. I'm not certain that I've developed any concrete ideas about the subject, but I have noted a distinct shift towards support of community and the interconnectedness of us all.
That's not to say that I have suddenly become a social being; indeed, I am as actively pursuing courses that set me apart from others as ever. But, I am certainly formulating a theory that our (Americans) stubborn clinging to absolute self-reliance, against all evidence that we NEED one another, is a hopeless and ultimately vitiating meme.
How can we deny our reliance upon others for our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being? Is it not through our shared experience that we develop our greatest advances. No, not technological or medical advances, young simpleton. I speak, rather, of the advances that truly matter.... the advances, not merely in knowledge, but in the understanding of that knowledge; not merely in our discovery of our humanity, but in the profound implications and ramifications of that humanity.
I love being human! I hate being human! Our crimes sicken me! Our creations bring me to tears, as I glimpse in them the nature of God!

20 September 2005

Get Your War On has posted David Rees' take on the Katrina debacle. Good stuff....



19 September 2005

Caught in the act........

Laura took up the camera tonight while we watched Jeremiah Johnson.
She seems to think it a moral imperative that she catch me in acts of violating my own principles.
She once snapped a photo of me firing a .22 rifle at the height of my disdain for guns (yes, I still think they're for the weak.)
Here I am smoking tobacco. Heavens ME!
I am a Taoist, I am like water. My principles are likewise. Besides that, I'm a Christian! Having values that are subject to the direction of the wind should lock me in pretty tight amongst the masses that call themselves Christians.
Pipe smoking is an art, unlike shoving filtered chemical sticks into your mouth to get a fix.




Throw the first stone, he who is without vice. This is a relaxing pastime for me that is indulged so infrequently as to have slipped from memory in the time betwixt.
This blend, 794 from Schwab's, has aged well since I last smoked it and it tasted very nice.
Those in the know will note that the pipe is a Comoy's. While not as expensive as my Savinelli or my freehand Karl Erik, it's one of the best smoking pipes I own.

Kids, don't try this at home!!!

18 September 2005

Midway Fall Festival 2005







16 September 2005

Much deserved recognition...


Here I am looking at some of my favorite music sites for download...er, purchase ideas and Mystery and Misery has a link to a website dedicated to one of the greatest bands of the 1960s, The Misunderstood. If I have ever burned a mix for you, The Misunderstood is probably on it. To know me is know that I have a special place in my soul that resonates to the sounds of Psychedelic and Garage music. "I Can Take You To The Sun" is an ideal example of the sound that alters my body chemistry for a while. Truly a forgotten gem in the annals of music.

15 September 2005

what's so special about Dooce?!?


Dooce said this.....Dooce said that.....
WTF?
You all do know that her seemingly innocent candor and raw insights are nothing more than her schtick, right?!?
Wake up. So she's attractive. So she lost her job because of her blogging. Big deal!
She lives in fucking Utah, people......voluntarily, as her husband recently put it.
Yes, it's true I have her site bookmarked; and yes, I do envy her for having a better camera than I do; and yes, she did graduate valedictorian of her high school and she possesses a witty and cunning intellect....
But she makes regular references to bodily functions, for cryin' out loud! The shock value of that shit is sooooo played out!

Heather, baby, I'm not suggestin' that I'm going to stop reading your stuff, but tell your fans to stop talking about you incessantly. Please. It makes working with lonely geeks nearly unbearable.

Oh, and if you want to mention me on your blog, that would be a cool traffic boost.

14 September 2005

Fiya


Disaster invariably incites evil to rear its ugly head!
The racist pigs in power were bound to say plenty of stupid shit during the Katrina crisis and 1115.org has captured some of the worst offenders in print. If you are inclined toward barely-containable rage and contempt toward those in leadership positions who sleep with Satan himself, I urge you to ingest plenty of medication before heading to 1115.org.
The wrath of Jah Himself is not enough to satiate my hunger for justice to be meted out on these men and women.
Representitives, Senators and former first ladies, people!!! And they are going to get away with saying this shit because anyone who voted for the selfish excrement that occupies the White House right now is incapable of removing their Fox News goggles to see clearly.

12 September 2005

Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens...


I think, once in a while, I'll post a little something about one or more of my favorite ...whatever...people, places, products, palindromes, puns, punks, pulchritudinous pibrochs or perennial pulques.
Tonight, as I quench my thirst before retiring to bed, I will direct your attention to NAKED® Food Juice.
The Green Machine is the best blend of nasty green shit that I've ever tasted. I've been drinkin' these things since they came out and they still top my list for beverage pleasure.
Anyhow, it's late for my old ass and I need to go to work tomorrow, so goodnight.

08 September 2005

Truth....where are you?

Just a rambling thought.........
How does one transcend the cyclical see-saw (wrap your mind around that Mobius!) of reactionary, revisionist history to get to the truth?
I grew up in the seventies, learning about the great "explorers" and their glorious "discoveries" without ever being exposed to the ugly side of those adventures. It never occurred to us fourth graders that imperialism and colonialism had any downsides. Hell, a game of "cowboys and indians" was strangely detached from the violent reality that was still fresh in the minds of some elders. That was just the way it was. My sister and I grew up in an ethnically diverse neighborhood and an equally diverse school system in Rochester, New York. Yet, we were all exposed to the same sterile, happy, white history that was portrayed in the textbooks of the day.
Strange days, those were.
By the mid-eighties, we were in high school and a reactionary movement broke out, revising the textbooks and curriculum to reflect the pain and suffering of generations of indigenous americans and the slaves torn from their respective countries.
However, this phenomenon swung history to the other side of the bias scales; going so far as to create new mythologies surrounding origins. Look at the five-percenters, for example. A n extreme reaction to the Eurocentric bias of history is to be expected, but does not necessarily speak to truth. Perhaps history is not capable of objectivity.
'

06 September 2005

Helpless? Hopeless?

PBS is showing a program on Haiti right now. I am not going to pretend to possess a fraction of the knowledge I need on the subject. I do not have any answers.
However, I would like to suggest a hemp program that might produce a slow, but steady, solution for some of the environmental issues (soil stability, oxygen production), hunger issues (hemp seed is an excellent source of protein and healthy fats and oils), biomass fuel for energy production, job production (hemp fiber, used for clothing and a myriad of other products just happened to save George Bush Senior's life in WWII by being the material used to make his parachute) and even economic growth in the realm of viable, sustainable trade.

Just a suggestion.

Editorial Tuesday

I admit to not knowing, or caring about, who this guy is, but the following editorial video presents a well spoken journalist with an axe to grind:

http://dailydissent.org/video/OlbermannSwings.wmv

What country is this again?!?

I know that I've been uncharacteristically quiet about the debacle in the devastated south, but the following article makes me furious:



3 Duke students tell of 'disgraceful' scene

By Ray Gronberg, The Herald-Sun
September 4, 2005 9:36 pm

DURHAM -- A trio of Duke University sophomores say they drove to New Orleans late last week, posed as journalists to slip inside the hurricane-soaked city twice, and evacuated seven people who weren't receiving help from authorities.

The group, led by South Carolina native Sonny Byrd, say they also managed to drive all the way to the New Orleans Convention Center, where they encountered scenes early Saturday evening that they say were disgraceful.

"We found it absolutely incredible that the authorities had no way to get there for four or five days, that they didn't go in and help these people, and we made it in a two-wheel-drive Hyundai," said Hans Buder, who made the trip with his roommate Byrd and another student, David Hankla.

Buder's account -- told by cell phone Sunday evening as the trio neared Montgomery, Ala., on their way home -- chronicled a three-day odyssey that began when the students, angered by the news reports they were seeing on CNN, loaded up their car with bottled water and headed for the Gulf coast to see if they could lend a hand.

The trio say they left Durham about 6 p.m. Thursday and reached Montgomery about 12 hours later. After catching 1½ hours of sleep, they reached the coast at Mobile. From there, they traveled through the Mississippi cities of Biloxi and Gulfport.

They say they elected to keep going because it seemed like Mississippi authorities had things well in hand.

Pushing on, they passed through Slidell, La., and tried to get into New Orleans by a couple of routes. Each time, police and National Guard troops turned them away. By 2 p.m. they'd wound up in Baton Rouge.

Stopping first at a Red Cross shelter and then at offices of a Baton Rouge TV station, WAFB, they eventually made their way to the campus of Louisiana State University. By 8 p.m. Friday they were working as volunteers in an emergency assistance area set up inside LSU's indoor track arena.

The students worked until about 2 a.m. Saturday, then slept on the floor of a dorm room. When they awoke, they went back to the TV station, which was hosting what Buder termed "a distribution center" for supplies.

At 2 p.m., the trio decided to head for New Orleans, Buder said. After looking around, they swiped an Associated Press identification and one of the TV station's crew shirts, and found a Kinko's where they could make copies of the ID.

They were stopped again by authorities at the edge of New Orleans, but this time were able to make it through.

"We waved the press pass, and they looked at each other, the two guards, and waved us on in," Buder said.

Inside the city, they found a surreal environment.

"It was wild," Buder said. "It really felt like it was 'Independence Day,' the movie."

The trio dodged downed trees and power lines until they happened upon Magazine Street, which runs in a semi-circle around the city parallel to and about four blocks north of the Mississippi River.

They stopped to give water to a 15-year-old boy sitting beside the road holding a sign that said "Need Water/Food," then went to the convention center.

The evacuation was basically complete by the time they arrived, at about 6:30 or 6:45 p.m. What the trio saw there horrified them.

"The only way I can describe this, it was the epicenter," Buder said. "Inside there were National Guard running around, there was feces, people had urinated, soiled the carpet. There were dead bodies. The smell will never leave me."

Buder said the students saw four or five bodies. National Guard troopers seemed to be checking the second and third floors of the building to try to secure the site.

"Anyone who knows that area, if you had a bus, it would take you no more than 20 minutes to drive in with a bus and get these people out," Buder said. "They sat there for four or five days with no food, no water, babies getting raped in the bathrooms, there were murders, nobody was doing anything for these people. And we just drove right in, really disgraceful. I don't want to get too fired up with the rhetoric, but some blame needs to be placed somewhere."

By about 7 p.m., the students made their way back to the boy on Magazine Street. He directed them to some people "who really needed to get out." The resulting evacuation began at a house at the corner of Magazine and Peniston streets.

The first group included three women and a man. The students climbed into the front seats of the four-door Hyundai, and the evacuees filled the back seat. They left the city and headed back to Baton Rouge. There they deposited the man at the LSU medical center and took the women to dinner. The women later found shelter with relatives, and the students got about four hours' sleep inside the LSU chapel.

At 6:30 a.m. Sunday, they made their second run into New Orleans, returning to the house at Magazine and Peniston streets. This time they picked up three men and headed back to Baton Rouge. Two of the men were the husbands of two of the women evacuated the night before. The students reunited them with their wives and put the two families on a bus for Texas.

Buder is from Martha's Vineyard, Mass.; Byrd is from Rock Hill, S.C.; and Hankla is from Washington, D.C.

URL for this article: http://americablog.blogspot.com/

© Copyright 2005. All rights reserved. All material on heraldsun.com is copyrighted by The Durham Herald Company and may not be reproduced or redistributed in any medium except as provided in the site's Terms of Use.

Dubya, you'd better hope that God has a plan in allowing you to neglect your obligations, because if I ever run into you on the streets, I'll be doling out some justice on your ass, ya' dig?!?
Your agenda, and my paranoid ass has some ideas about what that agenda entails, has no place in the administration of a diverse population of "united" people! How you, a man who is near illiterate, could be allowed to govern 300 million citizens of what should be a great country defies comprehension! Your gross incompetence and subjectively narrow understanding of your role are abhorrent!
Please retire.....or at least go for a LONG swim in the flood waters in New Orleans. Make sure to drink as much of that water as you can, too.

The Race to be Ruler of the World!

As many of you know, I turned 35 this year.
That milestone makes me eligible, thanks to the comprehensively written U.S. Constitution, to run for the president of our country. I have announced my intentions to do so to many friends, family members and associates in the past, but I am not so certain that I am taken seriously.
Well, since I am still researching the "how-to" of the process, I thought that I would kick off a soon to be running monologue about the whole issue of presidential electoral process. I say monologue because most of you fine readers seem to be too apathetic or disinterested to engage me in a discussion. If you're thinkin' I'm a daft prick for sayin' that, sound off in the comments or holla at me at the following gmail address:

wuweiblog@gmail.com

Anyhow, I happened to see a post about this presidential hopeful
on Alice's Wonderland Blog today and realized that I'd better get moving on my own campaign.
Also, check out all the tailor-made candidates that you missed by voting for the lesser of two evils rather than voting your conscience in these last two elections here.
I hope to have a ballad petition up soon.......still trying to figure out if electronic signatures will work.

03 September 2005

PLUR

35 years old and I still love to be tranced out by a DJ wit skillz. Dancing to a Theta wave inducing track under the pulsing lights amongst other souls of like mind is my drug of choice. Also, I just wanted to get one of my favorite animated GIFs out there.....Liquid!

01 September 2005

At the risk of ruining it........


There seems to still be a thriving community out there that is seeking alternatives to the current paradigm under which our society is being crushed. Not satisfied with finding low-impact alternatives to our consumption, environmental and fossil-fuel addiction problems, folks are finally addressing social issues in concert with the usual concerns.
A fanciful case in point is this house mentioned on Future Feeder a few days back.
Note in the blurb about the house that they have addressed a communal interdependence, a sharing of resources, that flies in the face of the oppressive meme of individualism in which we live.
Not one to espouse any one political theory, I caution you to avoid screaming "communist" or "socialist" at such an idea. This is a solution, not a provocation, so put down your torches and gavels, take a deep breath and look hard at the truth in the interconnectedness of all these issues.
We cannot affect significant change without addressing the most fundamental causes of the problems. Perhaps a critical look at the capitalist structure, as it is manifested here in the states is needed.
Just a thought.