Sunday 30 January 2011

A Religious Blog

1.

In North Korea the beloved leader shot a 19 on the country’s first gold course…somebody wanted to make him look not-too-perfect but “human all too human” and had him take a two on one hole.

17 hole-in- ones on an 18 hole golf course is pretty good

beating the existing record by over twenty strokes and

is in fact accomplishing a feat which defies even common sense…

but no other north korean has played golf so they don’t know

2.

“if you don’t learn from your mistakes you tend to repeat them…

as if the situation will ever repeat itself…

but we bring our past ideas forward…

usually in the negative…

if one mechanic rips me off all mechanics are crooks…

if one treats me fairly then he is an exception…

3.

belying my critical nature

as relationships go one

i exaggerate faults

on both sides of a “partnership”

which is another word

hijacked by the rabid right

4.

I excel in this society because of the cards i was dealt…if sitting writing on a sunny afternoon in a forest, on a hill over looking a mountain can be deemed excelling

5.

i only have to pretend capitalism works…and it does…

5.24

environmental degradation has begun in earnest,

5.26

countries in the middle east are demanding not reform but change…

they are willing to die not for a belief…

but because their lives have become unbearable…

6.

in the west we have become enamored by our inner lives while forgetting the very fact we are operating in a very real world…

only a neurosis is soothed with the purchase of unnecessary consumer goods.

we buy forgiveness by sponsoring children through world vision and donating to green peace…even our guilt is commodified…

6.22

the capitalist ideology is so embedded it appears as a non entity…there is no such thing as a capitalist party or even capitalist literature…philosophy is missing…it’s appeal is base and common…and it incorporates

religion, science, education, healthcare, art, entertainment, self help, sports

7.

what we believe to be our personal perspective is in fact not yours…it has been shaped and molded and any potential for originality is reduced to 1/8th and that can still be reduced…

7.45

“retain your individuality without becoming enamored”

said the fat piglet to the tired owl  

7.08

life via the internet…

virtual…a good organizing tool…

8.

life lived in person…has more subtlety and nuance

9.

Even the right question is difficult…

How does one respond to an ideology

which has caused more bloodshed

in the last century

than all other causes combined…?

and is still the major contributor

to starvation in so called third worlds…

and of course the right question

will have the answer

one way or another

it is only a matter of time…

9.125

Darwinism;

Israel and Las Vegas,

              religion  luck and 

                                               …destiny.  

10.

saw the end of an old movie last night called “Lucky One” by a British director starring the actor of clockwork orange fame…which was a satire…the director who is dead now said in a post movie interview he used absurdity to expose reality…

life is not linear and there was no beginning middle and end in a final sense        like say a day, which consists of breakfast, lunch and dinner…

10.77

memories may be no more accurate than dreams…

               the advante garde, i imagine,

will have a revival…    

Friday 28 January 2011

Freelance Friday

As with alcohol,

cigarettes, drugs,

singing, money and writing

I have a difficult time

knowing when to stop…

Here is the first part to poems for the shaw,

 

 

The Name

This short collection of memories, reflections and experiences is called

“Pomes for the Shaw,”

which at the time, was popular vernacular.

An older name would be:

The Edmonton Culture and Convention Center;

An Uprising;

titles to be used intermittently.

A Simple Explanation

A dishwasher working for low wages at the Edmonton Convention Center, sees a woman degraded, a man subjected to racism, and a senior exploited so he forms a union as a small act of vengeance.

Reception

One paid editor, commented, this work was one sixth complete and didn’t feel “Billy the Kid” by Michael Ondaajte was a good comparison.

Disclaimer

These poems are the result of an unsophisticated poet living in the literary world of Nietzsche and Bukowski. I fill the spaces with Layton, Purdy and early Atwood.

I apologize for the poor craftsmanship and self indulgence; these faults are mine and not those of poetry.

Two quotes

“Cheerfully order him to be stupid[gd1]

“Gnaw tender ears with biting truth”

A thank you:

To love and life: the beautiful Ramona,

Brother Gabe and Sister Dawn,

Old Man Melvyn

the lovely Lana and Hong

and Charles, Lindy, Ansuya, Polly, Asari, Gordon, Naomi, Lance and everyone else who had the courage to walk outside.

To the Rest

The cowards, the hypocrites, the spineless, the men without balls, the ass kissers and sluts

I wish you no hope, no luck, and no forgiveness, only an abyss, where you are alone and dead with yourself

Now all of you

Fuck off

and go back to work

“Coffee’s Over”

buy the book.


[gd1]use latin quote

i believe that piece of writing assumes a lot…so

i assume the people who control Israel are feeling the heat with the uprisings in the middle east, first the t country, then Egypt and another one has joined the fray.

The people are upset because they live on under a dollar a day which was bearable until the price of food went up…pushed to the point of action…just a

slow grinding worsening poverty

much unlike progress.

Most of the countries were under the sway of dictators, who ironically share a similar trait to the ultra wealthy…being billionaires

most for decades, would this maneuvering have occurred under a republican president? or has a space been opened by an Indonesian president…which has further alienated the white fundamentalists from their urban counterparts…we are not quite “all American” as the very vision of the country  is under divide…

the Chinese persuade with “we are all Chinese” when bartering amongst themselves.      

On  a Personal Note

I am still lopsided after my busy weekend in van…deals and drinking…a single mother with two kids, aging parents…a long stay in the DTES…and the trees look the same after my five day absent…and one day i lost entirely. 

Why write? is too open a question

The rich live in pristine nature while i am merely in a first world forest…i have a hard time making sense for it all…excluding reason and including reason…any comments from any literate imaginary readers i may have is welcome…

here’s to citizen wealth,

those dictators should be forced

to turn their assets over to the people

but that never happens…

now why would that be?   

Not in the News     

wikileaks

now why would that be?

never have the inner workings of a super power been revealed,

at even a diplomatic level…and the world is changing…

Obama has created space for humanism 

Assange has created space 

fundamentally using technology…

                                        and poems help

 

 

the us does not want a civil war…

the citizens have more guns than the army… 

mercifully as a failed writer

i can speak of what i do not know 

the revolution will not be televised

     thank goodness for freelance friday

Thursday 27 January 2011

Canadian Literature

Well Canada is a country of over thirty million people and most people here read…

though not so many poetry, philosophy or the classics…

                          it is a different time…

the literature capturing the movement of the city much like jazz..

Review

subTerrain “Strong Words for A Polite Nation”  No. 57

(which is funded by all levels of government through five different organizations

The City Of Vancouver(City) , the BC Arts Council(Provincial) , the Canada Council for the Arts(Federal), and the Government of Canada through the Publication Assistance Program (PAP) and the Canada Periodical Fund.)

The first piece is a monologue by Tim Carlson entitled Fractional Jets…which is about a guy who invests a $100,000 and works for a sham company that sells fractional ownership in jets out of Pemberton, which is just outside Whistler…

the narrator is talking to the child of the conman.

He seems to be discussing an ethical situation where everyone is lying.

He takes some relief by watching the owners of these frauds spend time in jail.

I don’t read all of the magazine…

the second story is a bout the zipline ride in whistler and on the same page in the margins is an article titled

Sorting Hype From Reality: The true legacy of the 2010 Olympic Games…which includes the reality of homeless people being forced into “shelters” legally

The Olympic Resistance Network ran under the slogan “No Olympics on Stolen Native Lands”.

The article ends:

The Olympics is not only a symptom of unfettered capitalism, but also a part of its pathological trajectory…

is it people before profit or profit before people?…

will decisions be made by community or by the elected or worse yet by the unelected elite…?

in this sense being for or against the Olympic Games reflected irreconcilable world views…Which one will prevail…?

It sounds like the debate is between anarchy and a centralized government…since both the elected and unelected elite are seen as problematic and not acting in the best interest of the majority.

The next section is about “Regret” and one chick loses her virginity, some one is reminded of their father by driving, another chick becomes a hooker, advertising about a book called True Home: Life on a Heritage farm…another chick has psychological problems and is addicted to cough medicine and sees a psychiatrist who she doesn’t like…

then more about the Olympics and

i’ll never use the word chick again

but another one writes about being fat…

another one does a period poetry piece,

a dude writes about losing at poker and the shame…

then their are a couple of book reviews;

one about growing up in North Delta and then some adds for competitions  and then a quote from the premiere of bc at the time on the back cover 

“ It’s not always popular to do what’s in your heart you know is right.”                    

Gordon Campbell. 

That’s a slice of Canadian literature from the west coast…

where i believe their are

a large number of scribbling fools

who seem to be on an humanitarian bender…

which does not necessarily equate into good writing…

Tuesday 25 January 2011

Tuesday

when i follow my impulses

basic chaos ensues…

          there has been little sleep

                        and my nerves are jangled

Sunday 23 January 2011

A religious Blog

1.

Jesus was an anarchist and not not a Christian…

2.

some one made up a story that he was resurrected,

which is the big miracle, and therefore there must be a god…

no one else has received so much notoriety for accomplishing this feat..

3.

if somebody went to the great beyond and then returned that means there is a great beyond…to comeback means we went somewhere…

and therefore there is somewhere to go

if we’re closely related to the ruler of this (land/space)

then we too can comeback and tell everyone

that the great beyond is well… great

and all earthly suffering is worth it…

which for many was a great relief…

especially the poor…

4.

guilt is not suffering

being in hunger or in war is… 

5.

it was not all in vain…

and in fact was serving a greater reality

than our subjective experience…

a larger collective…

if not you and everyone else,

at least you and god,

to which many profess,

a personal relationship…

                                      ”My Own Personal Jesus.”

 

isn’t that cute…

and the last time we spoke he said

“I’m only having one son.”

5.5 

Buddhist say you comeback

until you're done (the strange word reincarnation) 

which in many respects is even funnier…

forgive your way into oblivion…cum…passion

hence the liberals love affair with the nebulous concept of the void…

and the inherent lazy impotent character of that eastern religion

whose proper name in the west is

hedonistic enlightenment 

5.5.5

Today is Sunday and we are only two weeks away from the big celebration in the US of America…

Super Bowl Sunday…

6.

did god rest on Sunday?…

was this day not suppose to be a day when we worshipped…

yes yes i remember

7.

focus on football,

a game of territory

and hence power

these earthly human elements…

a need to conquer…to win…to prove we’re right…

8.

which i suppose is validation in a universe which offers no such consolation…

only a fact, or so it appears, we’re born and we die…

9.

I give you all permission to invent you’re own story…

but you are not allowed to use the various pathologies invented by the technicians of the soul as part of the narrative

if things do not go your way…

10.

since their is no “normal” or “status quo” per say…

you can stop trying to achieve a normal

that in fact does not exist…

                      in this system you have no chance

10.9

your dreams will always be your desires…

nothing more…

10.99

by design desire

is enticingly seductive

a promise that is

eternally broken…

11.

left right politically is an equilibrium

used to prevent discussion

around more pressing ideological points…

12.

I may have told this joke…

Back in the 15th century the Mongols controlled Russia.

One day a peasant and his wife were enjoying a rare quiet walk on a dusty road, just before sundown, when a Mongol rode by on horseback.

He saw the pretty wife and felt his loins stirred.

He turned around and told the peasant he was going to rape his wife…

if he disagreed he would die and his wife would still be raped so he said nothing…

the Mongol had had a rare bath and not wanting to get his balls dirty told the peasant to hold them while he helped himself…

well to make a long story short after the Mongol had done the deed he continued on and when he was out of sight the farmer started jumping in the air in apparent celebration.

The wife screamed through her tears

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Don’t you see i got him! His balls are covered in dust.”

12.5

Sadly i no longer have permission to smoke…even in drinking establishments…apparently is is not a right…i am told how to behave and must now even conform to the limitations they impose on my beautiful and well earned self destruction…fuck those motherfuckers…

just joking…

use a gun.

13.

A Story

I was at my therapists and told her i felt guilty about failin.

She said why are you failing…and i explained i felt empathy for my tenants who were unable to pay their rent so i let them stay in  my buildings for free

she quickly diagnosed that i was being self destructive and told me to evict those people who could not pay…and look in the mirror and say i deserve it.

I paid a 100 dollars for the session.

This is Sunday and this is a religious blog…

let us go on…  

14.

if you lend a hundred thousand dollars to someone

who doesn’t have any money or a job,

would you be surprised,

if they didn’t pay you back…

when the financial crisis hit…

every one said it came out of the blue…

Saturday 22 January 2011

Where i Live

Back in the mainland and last night was in the big bad city. I got punched in the mouth in a friendly way, by a man much bigger, physically, than I.

2.

Now back in my home town…sitting in J’s apartment with the birds and the dryer humming. It is only four and already it is getting dark…over all it has been a cloudy, low sky day which does not lends itself to optimism which for us, as a species is fitting.

3.

life doesn’t matter but we must some how make it important…something i suppose to spur us on…

religion some people say add dimensions to their earthly existence…

and i have had what people call a spiritual experiences…

via meditation, drugs, sex, fasting, and being in nature…

for us who can afford whatever this human experience has to offer it is a wonderful world…

4.

we are all bound to a common humanity yet everyone has a personal experience…

shaped by dna, culture, education, sex etc,  and most importantly wealth…

5.

when i was working at Home Depot i was not a free man…

i quit because they were telling me what i had to say…

they wanted to normalize me so a customers experience with Home Depot would be repetitive…350 thousand employees saying,

“What project are you working on?”

and in Anthony Robbins jargon they become anchored or in marketing parlance they become branded…

6.

most corporations now dictate what we should buy…advertising takes a demand supply equation and inverts it, supply demand…

we produce…we advertise…we sell

At one time washing clothes took up too much time

so a washing machine was invented…

7.

capitalism doesn’t seem to care if we have a good time

and in fact does not want any risk at all…

and there goes all the fun…

a capitalist believes he will never die..

which i consider a strange logic…

8.

“The time for liberal-democrat moralistic blackmail is over.”

First As Tragedy then as Farce by Slavoj Zizek page eight.

A capitalist knows no shame…

9.

how do you invite the neighbors over when you worth 300 million

and the rest, on good days, are worried about bills…

one is slave and one is master…

10.

maybe it is time to reconsider god who can at least give a described rendition of a better life and in the end death is salvation…

for me, so far, earthly pleasures, will have to be good enough.

11.

this is Saturday and that is where i live, mostly upstairs…

12.

an ode to the Shaw is inching a long.

Sunday 16 January 2011

Sunday a religious blog

The communists of today argue in semi well read books that capitalism is a system designed to fail…and hence the term creative destruction will end in destruction…

and they also argue the communism that was practiced wasn’t the “real communism” and that’s why their were so many atrocities…so weed need to keep “failing better” which is another way of saying creative destruction.

and the liberals argue capitalism only needs to be refined to feed the poor, stop the ecological degradation…and restore literature.

Capitalism is based on constantly changing the mode of production…this is known to you people as improvement…material progress will not satisfy a hungry inner world…the poetic hunger looms…says he with a finger up his nose.

Religion attempts to answer existential angst and is still popular.

Capitalisms Philosophy

greed is good

no provocative weakness

a billion private stories

progress is good

                     even if its bad.

 

there is no literature.

Pending Doom

ecological: the planet can know longer sustain us…                                          the answer: recycle, eat organic, drink water, meditate and leave a small footprint…  

bioenergetics: man merges with machine and thus changes human nature…the answer will be sorted out by the ethics committee who are professors at corporate run universities             

intellectual property rights…the answer will be sorted out by the lawyers whose reputation as outstanding citizens has been well earned…they exploit the laws for their own material gain which is contrary to the laws being good for the people…

Not to worry as you can see, you are doing what you can in the first instance and the other two aren’t even on our radar.

We should be fine…

Agency  

as more walls are built, gated communities, Palestine Freedom wall etc.                                                                                                                           and more slums are created in capitalisms wake will there be enough unrest for a revolution…

Marx argued the proletariat would get worse and worse off and eventually riot…it has happened a few times but it did not end well…the Gulags of Russia are an example…  

Communism or capitalism

in capitalism there in no future

that is of any interest to a poet or a philosopher

at least the idea of a collective takes some optimism…

anarchy is less well known alternative

with  an impressive history

or so I've been told.

To My Imaginary Audience

I am not going to be using my computer for the next few days. My next scheduled blog will be an up date of poems for the shaw on Thursday.

Time to get Serious

C’mon hear the noise…girls rock your boys…we’ll get high! high! high!  

    or so the old rock song goes

Saturday 15 January 2011

Saturday

Where I live

as per usual i distract myself strongly from my intended goal…finishing the book pomes for the shaw…i tell myself there will be more stories…if i follow the instinctive impulse…and that is true…but one narrative will continue…the book will still be incomplete and I will not have given best effort towards my goal…

and i do not use “goal” in an irreverent sense…Anthony Robbins says we must be focused…but too much of that is a bad thing…the forest for the trees…and a cynic would argue…and i can agree…and we see what’s going on but there’s nothing we can do about it…like children we can only look after our own lives…

“most of us have withdrawn to, or never emerged from a strictly private life…”

capitalism and its concurring religion

self help,

self progress,

self care,

depressed, neurotic, paranoid, empty,

righteous,

emotive…

and the system creates the psychology

…how do we know…

children are not born capitalists…

now even jewish ones…

it is an ideology…

not an evolutionary step…

unless extinction is the goal…

 

Facebook

now we have platforms upon which to announce ourselves to the world…and some argue it reinforces the masks we wear,

for any person knows no one is that much more special than anyone else…

we can all have conversations…

  • A Israeli soldier in Palestine burst into a home and the mother calls panicedly to her daughter to get down…
  • and the name called is the same name as his daughter…
  • he pulls out his wallet and shows the Mother a picture 

a complete absorption into a personal bias;

motive: feeling better…

 

lack

drives the self movement…

and that lack is not an inherent trait…

it is an impression of a system

that only requires improvement…

which is more efficiency…not better but faster…

you will not get drunk if you drink water…

no matter how fast or how much…

 

poor people

are more friendly

less emphasis 

or put more precisely

no one is exploiting…

unless they’re talking to the

rich

even gated communities are cold isolated places…

people are suspicious…

everyone is wary of a thief…

here the pot calls the kettle black

before 

wealth was known by land

…then gold..now  

a fiat currency

which is only paper

                                            with a promise…

Land          

a South Korean corporation

has leased half the arable land

in Madagascar

for 99 years…

corporations in Korea control the country…

a good idea

to feed the workers…

the first world is self sufficient…

the poor countries cannot feed their people

this is not an absolute

we can point to many examples of farmers

who were coerced to grow cash crops

and then had to borrow money

to invest in infrastructure

and then  shot themselves

because they were going to lose their land 

                the game intentionally meant to make them fail…

the bankers get rich

check India

where the suicide of farmers

has been reported between

10’s of thousands to hundreds of thousands…

and in the west those that know

shake their heads

What can i do?

it so far away and it’s so complicated…

but i must think local…that will help…

I will be a good person and

practice everyday kindness

and not imagine those

poor rag heads…

blowing their brains out

or how ever they do it…

  

Again 

Corporate interest is an ideology

that is so prevalent it is not even recognized…

                           how can a fish understand water…

    

Back to India

when farmers grew food for themselves

and their neighbors

they didn’t kill themselves so often…

 

The Beauty of Capitalism

the Israeli’s hire Palestinians

to build walls that will

restrict their freedom

of movement

(which is a worldwide trend

see: airport pat downs and bar codes on passports)

 

it’s getting better

but not for everyone

“creative destruction”

describe the system

              an evolutionary process which like nature can be cruel…

so the proponents of capitalism argue  

The dream is Over

social mobility is a thing of the past

with only a few newsworthy stories

to pad the narrative millions of self reporters…

exploitation taken to new heights…

                 sociologists call this normalization… 

 

On a personal note  

i distract myself from the task at hand. 

Friday 14 January 2011

Freelance Friday

and it goes on…the good the bad and the ugly all operating within a system that keeps all but the super wealthy employed…selling time…not to better society but to better yourself…you have been sold the dream that you could get ahead…that you could wake up from the drudgery of your existence…

the system is intentionally dull…if we can get everyone the same it is an easier

sell.

production is getting more efficient

and that  has been internalized…

we think we can get better…

has been ingrained…

and we make up shit to fill the narrative…

Self Help

I need to improve myself so i can enjoy life more…the planet’s dying…

they concentrate on themselves and not the system or the few that control th system ,

the super wealthy should be fine…

run the xmas commercial of the polar bear drinking coke…

they love that one…freelance friday have a beer… 

CBC SHAME

after watching conrad black steal boxes from his office he is now on CBC wishing people a merry xmas…his crime only obvious for its arrogance…

Question

if i am wealthy does that equate into poverty for others

Say there is a planet and 10% of the population is using 75% of the resources and the other 90% get 25%…a small percentage is using most of the pie and the rest fight for crumbs…that 10% controls the biggest military…and as an outsider the explanation seems clear…now interestingly some of the 10% explain 1% of the 10% controls them…so how can they feel bad…

it is not there fault they build Las Vegas and use much water in the desert when it is becoming increasingly scarce or that other parts of the world are dying of thirst…

i mean c’mon we can ship oil…

why not water?…

but politicians don’t want to go there…

then capitalism is at full throttle…

once everything has been sold only then will we stop…

religion 

with a benefit of an enjoyable after death

when your dead you get your reward

i.e. it feeds on our fear of death..

i.e our insignificance…

the seeming pointlessness of it all…even a hundred years      a raindrop on the ocean…

last time i spoke with Bhuddha

he admired agnosticism as he knew very little

ahhh the after life he chuckled

nobody knows…and he was already dead.

i am agnostic

religious people are arrogant because they have connections to an unworldy reality

and atheists are arrogant because they believe in their word, in their logic…

but no one has proved there isn’t a god…

nor the other way around…

the conversation is faulty…we don’t know

but

we know about the world

or if you’re hungry you do,

or if you’ve labored all day

or if you’re in a street fight…

or spent seven days in the desert…

but sitting comfortably

in front of a screen

is a more mental experience

and less vital…less physical for sure… 

More and More Man Made

heaven on earth

is not going to be an epitaph…

c’mon stop it

going down in a blaze of ignorant pride

stop the conversation…

we have lives to live here…

or perhaps in other dimensions… 

Money Talks and Talks and talks… 

i could give my wealth away

but that would only empower

some one else in a capitalistic society…

Compassion

giving or charity or NGO’s are ways

capitalism tries to reduce it’s disparities…

it will not solve world hunger…

on that i will bet my last dime…

A Vow of Freedom

If i am wealthy does that make other people poor?

yes…

live with it…or change the system

and that does not happen

“one person at a time”

I have no answer

a question my good friend Nietzsche once posed

“How do they account for the ones who

are evil and happy?”

Thursday 13 January 2011

Thursday

Poems for the Shaw

has been typed out again

and upon a closer reading

this is a twisted love story

                         and a labor move

the elements are not bouncing of one another as much as i would like…

and i can not remember all of it that well…

it was ten years ago as of November…

so i still have time

though i don’t really want to do this for the rest of my life…

Art

does one orphan a piece of art or is it constantly evolving…is it ever time to let  go…does one feel this way about a child…do we have influence…

 

we assume that cognizant progress is on par with our biological development and pointedly we have a large complicated brain…are we evolving?   is art?

Nature

one reason to be suspicious of capitalism is the amount of waste…just think advertising,

professional sports…

they took something we loved as children and made it into a transaction…

their is barely any street in basketball anymore…

nash is cool…

from a private school on an island in canada …

i thought those inner city usa schools a little tougher…

The professionals 

are over coached

the guys playing on the street got schooled on the playground…

the game has become corporatized…

you do not see a George Gervin, a  Dr. J, a Michael Jordan, a Gus “The Wiz” Williams, a downtown Freddy Brown

MJ passed the torch to Kobe…

aside

Michael jackson was used to corporatize music…

Kobe Bryant was used to corporatize basketball…

Tiger was used to popularize golf

obama i hope is different

Kobe schooled by his semi professional dad over in europe…

michael jackson,from a very young age 

and tiger woods…same as kobe

three superstars who were robots…

super ambitious fathers have brought these art forms to technically proficient levels…

but to bring it back to basketball jordan was cut from his grade eight team,

Kobe was learning Italian and being a very big fish in a not so big pond…Italy is known for football 

Tiger is an admitted sex aholic

Kobe Bryant was accused of rape

Michael wanted to be white…or at least lighter

they’re all weird…maybe everyone is weird…

Money

tiger makes a 100,000,000 year

you make above average 50,000 year

tiger’s year is worth

2000 times what your year is

say you’re a well paid teacher

tiger is worth a 1000 times more than you per year                       because his face and reputation will sell products…we admire good golfers and …if he uses Spalding clubs and has been golfing eight hours a day since he was  2…

quickly you reach the needed ten thousand to become good at something…10,000 so the university professors reckon…            so say he takes a few days off

even by the age of seven he has put in 10, 000 hours…

throw in some nartural talent and a dull personality…and you have a tiger…

golf is important…

people who play golf well

know what kind of golf clubs to use…

i buy those golf clubs and i practice and i get better…

so when you go to heaven and god says

“What did you do this life?”

“i got my handicap down to minus two…”

“ok you can stay…”

for many rich people it is part of their humanity…i kid you not…

hitting white balls into holes on manicured lawns, is more important if we prioritize, than saving sick children…

Oh oh

the bourgeoisie are cruel bastards who have no incentive to think deeply about the plight of others…

question “is my comfort deserved?” will arrive

regardless of what has happened in the past

it is going on

we have exploited say 50% of the earths resources, roughly say, since the start of the industrial revolution, say 500 years…

the numbers are actually much tighter…

say in another 500 years they’ll be nothing left say five generations…people live longer…

in THE THIRD WORLD…

PEOPLE ARE BEING EXPLOITED

IS THAT OK…

PART OF PROGRESS…?

 

WHEN THEY CONSUME

That 500 YEARS GET’S SHORTER…

           WE ARE GETTING MORE EFFICIENT…

THE WORD PROCESSOR

GIVES NICER, SMOOTHER WRITING

BUT MOST OF THE THINKING IS DEFFICIENT

READ AN OLD BOOK BY AN INTELLECTUAL, EVEN from 60 YEARS AGO…

THEN READ ONE TODAY SHROUDED IN  OBSCURE JARGON.

Marx

They are following Marxist footsteps

but the economy keeps getting more complicated.

Marx saw wealth as a surplus of labor.

The only thing of value was labor in Victorian capitalism 1800’s…

you got paid for what you produced…

but the product was not yours…

a farmer labours in his field

and produces surplus produce

which he sells…the money is his profit

the proletariat are paid by the hour and do not have this option…

value is time…sell their time for money to survive in capitalistic system…

at the end of the day all we have is time…

but rarely is that part of the equation

the last social critics of note,

adorno and another german dude who wrote the Dialect of Enlightenment felt the case was so far gone they were writing for the silent witness…

Habbermas…

not many have even heard of

Marx

offered a thorough indictment of his epoch…

but no one has really come up with a more convincing system…perhaps capitalism only needs refinement…

interestingly capitalism has no philosophers…only critics…

perhaps this is an indictment of philosophy but i don’t think so…

make advertising illegal and then see what we consume..or perhaps waste is inherent in the wheel…                  

Back to Pomes for the Shaw

because my memory is faulty both of the past and of the future i will have to use my imagination…as John Lennon urges in song…

i will be in Edmonton near the beginning of February to take some pictures of the conference center and get a feel again for what was going on…it can’t hurt the book.

The snow has turned to rain and when i went to start my car/truck the battery was dead. The owner of the cabin left his VW van here and i used it to charge the battery…i was going to google something but i figured out how to do it by myself…the vehicle sputtered to life and i drove to the awful village for a new book.

“First as Tragedy, Then as Farce.”   by Slavoj Zizek.

This is Internet one.                         

Wednesday 12 January 2011

Wednesday

On the schedule it says to discuss Canada Lit…but i have nothing on say on such a flat and outdated topic…instead let us turn to Marx:

from Manifesto of the Communist Party

Party Ryazanoff edition (New York 1930) pp. 25-54 First published in 1848

“Wherever the bourgeoisie has risen to power, it has destroyed all feudal, patriarchal, and idyllic relationships. It has ruthlessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound men to their “natural superiors”; it has left no bond between man and man but a crude self interest and unfeeling “cash payment.”

It has drowned pious zeal, chivalrous enthusiasm, and humdrum sentimentalism in the chilly waters of selfish calculation. It has degraded personal dignity to the level of exchange value; and in place of countless dearly bought chartered freedoms, it has set up one solitary unscrupulous freedom—free trade.

In a word (or two) it has replaced exploitation veiled in religious and political illusions by exploitation that is open, unashamed, direct, and brutal. 

The bourgeoisie was the first to show us what human  activity is capable of achieving. It has executed works more marvelous than the building of Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has carried out expeditions surpassing by far the tribal migrations and the Crusades.

That which characterizes the bourgeoisie epoch in contradistinction to all others is a continuous transformation of production, a perpetual disturbance of social conditions, everlasting insecurity and movement.

All that has been regarded as solid, crumbles into fragments; all that was looked upon as holy, is profaned; at long last people are compelled to gaze open eyed at their position in life and their social relations...

The newly formed becomes obsolete before it can petrify.

Urged onward by the need for an ever expanding market, the bourgeoisie has given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every land.

The workers are forced to sell themselves piecemeal as a commodity like any other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition and to all the fluctuations of the market.

They are not merely the slaves of the  bourgeoisie class, they are in daily and hourly thralldom to the machine, to the foreman and above all to the owner.

When the worker has been paid his wages in hard cash and momentarily escaped the exploitation by the factory owner he is set upon promptly by the landlord, the shopkeeper, pawnbroker…etc.

Out of the manifold national and local literature…

a world literature arises…”

Marx felt the capitalistic system was unfair…he believed the seeds of its destruction were inherent to its structure…

as the bourgeoisie had replaced nobility he believed the proletariat  would rise and replace their masters…this has not occurred.

Maybe because the lines between the working class and the owning class are blurred…and maybe because in the west materially things have gotten better…there is of course alienation where the people don’t feel connected to anything…beyond a cost benefit analysis…and this where we get into post modernism which is a continuation of Marxist thought and the inherent problems with capitalism…that is an intuitive guess…but his writing and thought has been critical in the formation of the social sciences.

Bataille speaks of the disembodied eye      

2.

This quote coincides with my personal experience.

The economic basis of a society determines its social structure as a whole as well as the psychology of the people within it.”

Having been born into a poor family, that became rich, i had, in retrospect, a privileged upbringing. Though my parents were relatively frugal the basics were well covered and i did not want for much.

In Marxist language i was raised with bourgeoisie values with some proletariat ideology…thrown into the mix…

The thinking of people who are poor is much different than the thinking of people who are rich…as Camus notes there is nothing similar between a master and a slave…

3.

I attended various self help groups in my twenties and more sparingly in my thirties.

I was interested in the inner workings of the mind and curious about a soul.

Of course these groups have no leg to stand upon except perhaps occasionally they make you feel good…

But street drugs work just as well and the lifestyle is more varied…

The rant

you meet the same sad stupid faces in the self help movement…mostly people from the rising middle class who complain about their parents or their husbands or their inability to lose weight, or their inability to express themselves—

their lives are empty and meaningless and they want some one to tell them that they matter—but fortunately they don’t—their net worth is greater than their self worth which could be partly explained by the parasitic nature of their existence…and in Marx parlance they are doomed…now we can turn off Oprah and go about our lives… 

to engage in any of it you do so at your peril…know this…

you will never get better…and if you want to succeed in that world just take lots of classes…learn the lingo and appropriate behavior and maybe one day you can be a group leader…

forget about ever being whole…

umm…I mean let’s heal…         

An Aside

though one should not overlook the contribution of Freud and other scientists of the psyche…ego is I, id is it, and super ego is super I

Going Down

Then i found myself in a lower socioeconomic reality and …

most of what i learned at the various self help groups did not apply…

in all my travels i did not find one liberal in the entire quagmire

though i did meet some people with personal dignity intact.

2010 The Death of the Liberal Class by Chris Hedges my ass

As was reported by C Wright Mills in the early 1960’s

“Liberalism is with out coherent content , that is that its goals have been made so formal and abstract as to provide no clear moral standards, that in terms genuine conflicts of interest and ideal can  no longer be stated clearly. Used by all interests, classes, parties, it lacks political, moral and intellectual clarity, this very lack of clarity is exploited by all interests. Politicians, professional liberals and intellectuals make a fetish of indecision, which they call open mindedness; of the absence of moral criteria, which they call tolerance; and of the formality—and hence political irrelevance—of the criteria which they call speaking broadly.”

On a Personal Note

I’ve been snowed in and have had no coffee, no cigarettes, no beer and no weed…food is running low…and if it doesn’t stop i’ll have to eat the budgies.

Budgie is an Australian aboriginal word for “good eating”  so there is mercy.

One final note from Marx

The members of the bourgeoisie, not content with having the wives and daughter of the proletariat at their disposal (to say nothing of public prostitution) find one of their chief pleasures in seducing one another's wives…

did you know the commies wanted to abolish families…my…my…

Ahhh….family values in America…now i understand… 

Tuesday 11 January 2011

Tuesday

Aristotle’s discussion of great soul (megalopsychia) is worth quoting here, at least in part, because it evidently has influenced a great number of my readers.

“A person is thought to be great-souled if he claims much and deserves much (as Socrates did in the Apology when he said he deserved the greatest honor Athens could bestow)…he that claims less than he deserves is small souled…the great-souled man is justified in despising other people—his estimates are correct; but most proud men have no ground for their pride…he is fond of conferring benefits, but ashamed to receive them, because the former is is a mark of superiority and the latter of inferiority…It is also characteristic of the great souled men never to ask for help from others, or only with reluctance, but to render aid willingly; and to be haughty towards those of position and fortune, but courteous to those of moderate station…he must be open both in love and in hate, since concealment shows timidity; and cares more about the truth than what people will think…he is outspoken and frank, except when speaking with ironical self depreciation, as he does to common people…He does not bear a grudge, for it is not a mark of greatness of soul to recall things against people, especially the wrongs they have done you, but rather to overlook them. He is not given to speaking evil himself, even of his enemies, except when he deliberately, intends to give offense…Such then being the great souled man, the corresponding character on the side of deficiency is the small souled man, and on that of excess, the vain man.”

Nicomachean Ethics IV. 3 Rackman translation Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University press 1947

116   

The great epochs of our life comes when we gain the courage to rechristen our evil as what is best in us.

Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Epigrams and Interludes, Kaufman translation 1967

44

The liberals in North America “strive with all their powers for the green pasture happiness of the herd, with security, lack of danger, comfort and an easier life for everyone…the two songs they repeat most often; “equality of rights” and “sympathy for all that suffers”…and suffering itself they take for something that must be abolished.”

Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil  The Free Spirit, Kaufman translation 1967

 

Took a long walk to day in the forest

and noticed how thin the trees were,

rarely would i see a thick trunked monster,

and the ones i did spot were  deformed.

 

If it is true that human being have used

up close to 90% of the worlds resources,

giving a 110% may have a whole

new set of implications…

 

At first glance it would seem things have gone terribly wrong.

Monday 10 January 2011

An Economic Blog

Monday again                                                                                                     and the snow…                                                                                                                      mercifully has fallen

and my my the arts have died.

In a Democracy

the master slave relationship is less obvious

but more congruent with a winner take all mentality…

we are the government…

i believe we vote for our leaders

and they who are wise

in our opinion

will lead us humbly

in servitude…

for the greater good…  

Yet

strangely many people do not vote

and some say if it mattered

it would be illegal…

my democracy.

(i know no leaders personally

and i have never voted.)

Progress

  the building

of this nation

has spawned

a better world

of shopping,

of health

technology

efficiency…and

at universities 

“there is a terror,”

says an unnamed professor

“a culture of fear emerging

within the university. We are in a

boom economy for solution driven research

and a famine economy for

arts, humanities and social sciences”

The Bet

the solution is the problem

the driven research at the academies of higher learning is fuelled at least partly in Alberta by oil companies, who are concerned about the possible environmental impact, of their mining activities…

they are well financed…

and in first worlds

the water is clean

the police are in charge

we have lots of food

and we control most

of the resources 

since the beginning 

of the industrial revolution

say the 1500’s 

mother nature is about a 10th

of what  she was ..

call it five hundred years…

of course

this a rough number…

but consider that 12% of the lands worldwide are protected

one tenth of one percent of the ocean is fully protected…

Based on History as reported in books like

the history of progress we have

a tendency to hunt to extinction…

who wants to live this life…

amazingly technology has allowed us to fish at depth…

we found a new species deep in the ocean

and until 1970 they were never fished…

too deep… some 2.5 kilometers down

…but we found a away…

now statistically speaking 

99.7% for the onion eye

and 100% for the round nose

are dead.

we fished to extinction

in under fifty years

my we’re efficient

and we believe more efficiency

is going to solve the problems

created by being too efficient.

this is not idealism

if we didn’t know how to fish at depth

those fish would still be alive…and so would we…

Money

When you lose 90% 

900% gain to get back to even

i.e.

1.00 down to a dime  (minus 90%)

A dime to a dollar  (plus 900%)

that would mean nature

would be nine times

what she is today…

to go back to preindustrial times

but that won’t happen…

on the contrary it keeps getting worse…

“the punishment pollutes more than the crime” (N)

what responsibility do you have?

i gave up a long time ago

         at the urging of my good friend

                                             Shawn…the black swan…

or as the great people’s poet

Charles Bukowski said

many times “Don’t Try.”

But

“a culture of fear emerging within the university. We are in a boom economy for solution driven research and a famine economy for arts, humanities and social sciences.”

It’s like we don’t want to know better…

and of course poetry will not make you any filthy lucre…

but the arts, humanities and social sciences are suppose to provide moral and ethical support for all of these advancements and for the business world…

a business world with out ethics is as dangerous as unfettered progress with out morals…right is right…wrong is wrong…when unlimited growth is the economic model…90% disappears pretty quick…

maybe we’ll just keep figuring out ways to make things better…

mainstream 

and i include counter culture

the arts have died…

or at least are in a famine economy…

though i have noticed intelligentsia…

is starting to ask why?

which isn’t  a great question.

Fuck it     

It is Monday and this in an economic blog.

many of these facts come from the magazine The Walrus “A Ten Percent World” by J.B. MacKinnon who won the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-fiction for his first book, “Dead Man in Paradise” published September 2010 and from the article

Office of the President

The University of Alberta’s Indira Samarasekera has learned that when a nations prosperity is linked inextricably to the quality of its post secondary education and research, running a university is an exercise in risk management.

by Gordon Laird       

Sunday 9 January 2011

A Religious Blog

a.

Recently read that the word soul and immortality

are rarely used nowadays in philosophical essays.

b.

since the advent of materialism, continuing with scientism and technology

*the new super computer can do a quant trillion computations a second…whatever that means…

c.

some are predicting that consciousness will evolve from carbon to silicone…         

i.e. eventually technology will become part of us and then supersede us…

this seems to be our current course…

already social networks are creating new nervous systems…

and perhaps machines don’t have souls…

so modern philosophy is unsure

obviously i don’t know…

d.

immortality is a different question…

i have had the experience of being conscious of myself in ways others could not see first hand…my own unique personal perspective

and i believe most have had this experience…

which has led some philosophers to believe there is something beyond the physical body…

perhaps as a Buddhist believes or a spiritualists or a Muslim,or a Jew or a Christian.

e.

Everything thing is relative,

we believe everything so we believe nothing

we amend this spiritual vacuum by pretending 

it doesn’t exist

atheism has won the day…or at least the debates…

f.

when things are going well you don’t pray to god…

over 10 million baby boomers will live to be a 100…

for them it has only gotten better…

what a lucky generation…

they say it was hard work…

and until recently it has always been hard work…

g.

only in late capitalism does the excess of the system allow for so many to have so much…

and this will go on for a while…

she’s a run away train…that nobody dare stop…

h.

super power with Obama in the chair…

sounds like a lot of young people are democrats

perhaps the old guard will die off

i

if it is an industrial military complex,

as some have suggested…we are

looking for ways to kill one another more efficiently

i believe we call it protection

j.

what a strange race…

 

On a personal note       

a.

watched a football game today…

the old dog killer was a quarterback…

but he lost.

b.

cooked a roast 

in a casserole dish

half filled with water

and a large onion

for three hours.

it took so long

i ate a box

of Triscuits

and felt sick

c.

blogging is ridiculous

but i must go on… 

Saturday 8 January 2011

Saturday Where I Live.

Thank Goodness

i was typing away at what appears to be my life’s work, and i was more than halfway through and it was under 5000 words. Now I am 44, and have spent 23 years, 276 months, approximately 1,104 weeks  and over 8000 days as an adult. My production has been less than prolific. A word a day or more honestly many days when pen was not put to paper.

But when i think about it I only realized poems for the shaw at the turn of this century 2001.

   

On a Different Note

I see writing as a worthwhile practice and to be honest a seemingly necessary antidote for my mental agility…

if i could write what was going on…                                                                   even though it  was rarely discussed…                                                                                        i could salve the fracture….  

Famous.

The celebrity culture is shabby.

An advertising man, Andy Warhol started this endless marketing  campaign

A long descent of fame for the sake of fame…

call it what it is “marketing”…

lady ga ga’s talent is not commenstrutive with her popularity…

as the great Canadian author Douglas Copeland said,

Education

is a game and if you know how to game it…you’ll get A’s.

Fame

is a game and if you know how to game it…you’ll get famous…

This is not totally true…some people are just caught in circumstance

Copelands’ personal

i narrative is a sign of the times

he ironically helped create—the x generation

Nietzsche (N) says,

“the causa sui is the best self contraction that has been conceived so far, it is a sort of rape and perversion of logic; but the extravagant pride of man has managed to entangle itself profoundly and frightfully with just this nonsense.”

Now why would the ultimate expression of self—true purpose, the reason for being-- be considered extravagant pride?…

….and is this not what we aim for…or am i only speaking for myself?

“A rape and perversion of logic…”

if every one thinks they are special or have a unique purpose…and special and unique mean different/better then logically would their cannot be a majority…yet for the vastness of history most people have pretty well done the same thing and lived very ordinary and a few years back, very difficult lives…and if the striving is towards one up man ship as it is clearly is in liberal classes the thinking is more strategic than creative…

a causa sui is a mission not a purpose…    

(N)

believed in the elite

the fame culture

reinforces that belief…

but for different reasons

        move a mans heart

                          not his reason…

   many mediocre post modernists?

It is a sign of our their philosophy…

moral relativism…ads nauseum

signifier, signified, insignificant

we get the point…

everyone has a subjective view…

i.e. first person.

               Literature

Canadian lit is a game

the winners become writers’ in residence

and speak at some interesting conferences…

              Now that is fine…

but it doesn’t seem to make much difference.

 

(verb) game nature…

she won’t play

what happens there is real

no way to (verb)game

building a fence out of posts and cedar

now make it a game (noun)…

but with physical work

the thinking is different.         

Friday 7 January 2011

Freelance Friday

The Neo-cons

As reported in the book, “The Forty Years War,” the strategist behind the stellar conservative movement is a gentleman by the name of

Fritz Kraemer.

He was born in 1908 and his view of the world was seen through the first two great wars and later the cold war.

He disdained Germany’s most influential intellectuals-Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche as “destructive Nihilists.”

He saw the cabarets and the babbling politicians of the liberal Weimar Republic, as reflective of a decadent bourgeoisie, unable to understand the coming revolution, the revolution of nihilism…or Nazism…

Kraemer believed

1.Foreign policy must have primacy over domestic policy to ensure a nations survival.

2.The essence of foreign affairs was “political strength and ultimate military might.”

3.The only policy worth pursuing was the balance of great powers.

He was a thinker and not a doer so he aspired to “ the position of political advisor to the chief of the general staff of the army and eventually political mentor to a great foreign secretary.”

He had a degree in law and when the Nazi’s announced restrictions on the Jews he and his wife moved to Italy. Here he taught at the University of Rome, while taking a second doctorate in political science.

In 1937 when Mussolini became Hitler’s ally Kramer found suitable boarding for his wife and child and departed for Great Britain then to the United States. He worked a number of odd jobs before being drafted in 1943.

“The army quickly noted his talents and gave him the task of lecturing and preparing officers who were going into Germany after D-day. it was during this assignment that he met Kissinger.”   

Kraemer would lecture Kissinger on his view of history and current events…as Kissinger later wrote

“Kraemer was as learned as he was dramatic, as dedicated as he was eloquent.”

he continued in his war efforts and reunited eventually with his family.

Kraemer believed Great Britain and France could have stopped Hitler in 1938 at Munich. He called their refusal to act a sign of

“provocative weakness”

In the ashes of ww2 Kraemer applied this theory to the new enemy, communism who’s proletarianism and tyrannical suppression he considered an evil equivalent to Hitler's socialism.

The west yielding to the communists was same as the Allies yielding to Hitler.

In 1948 Kramer accomplished one of his goals by becoming the official advisor to the US army chief of staff.

Kraemers views were not unique. Many philosopher and strategist on the right also said and wrote similar things including Leo Strauss and Andrew Wohlstetter,

Kraemer gave his ideas a more overtly military turn. 

In a letter to Kissinger in 1956 he writes,

“History is not really made by pens or printers ink…that in truth, men will adopt the bold imaginative policies we want them to adopt, not because their brains are convinced by conclusive argument but because their hearts are moved.”

He refused promotions and and lived an ascetic life-keeping no tv at home, and staying fit through exercise—he believed this reinforced the purity and force of his arguments.              

Kraemer fundamentally distrusted diplomacy that lacked military power.

He dismissed those he considered overeducated and under experienced as “brilliant fools” and feared that a bourgeois society—which he believed the western democracies had already become—would never understand the devastating effect of provocative weakness.

Totalitarian dictatorship like the USSR repeatedly took Western weakness as license to expand their empire.

“Many technicians in high places do not grasp the reality that nothing has ever been granted to nations on a silver platter and that great and difficult goals had never been accomplished without passion and a flame of true conviction.”

Diplomacy was a cardinal example of that basest of sins

moral relativism.

Intellectual have always preached that everything is relative and there are no absolute values. the result is spiritual emptiness. Everything is possible therefore nothing is. The worst thing about a loss of faith is not the fact they have stopped believing but that they are ready to believe anything.”

“Nothing is possible without power” Kraemer was fond of saying.

Economics is no substitute for military force. The one way to prevent war was to develop military might and make sure that other other countries understood your willingness to use it.

Kraemer believed in seeding the elite with those of superior intellect, pledged to high ideals and trained in his way of thinking.

In the past century he pointed out that small heroic groups had saved civilization by a combination of strength, will and power.

Power was not a privilege, he avowed, but an obligation of the governing elite.

In 1969 when the American public clamored for an end to the war Kraemer wished to expand it.

He felt it was crucial that the incoming President Richard Nixon include Kissinger, Haig and his son Sven as a staffer.

Kissinger in a glowing tribute:

“like the ancient prophets he made no concessions to human frailty or  to historic evolution…he was a beacon that amidst the turmoil of the moment he guides us to the transcendental.”

Commentary

The US foreign policy supersedes domestic policy…military spending is more fundamental and basic than social programs…we have super power and we’re not afraid to use it.

Communism led to fascism and a lack of liberty.

Canada is a direct recipient of US militarism…

many Americans say it is nicer to live here…

The US is a secure state…

When you’re poor you vote democrat when you’re rich you vote republican…

alas this is not always the case.

“The real war will never get in the books.” Walt Whitman  

 http://bookreview.mostlyfiction.com/2010/the-forty-years-war-by-len-colodny-and-tom-schactman/ 

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Thursday 6 January 2011

Thursday

An Old Bolshevik Joke

A communist propagandist is sent to hell. He convinces the guards to let him go and he escapes to heaven. When the devil discovers his absence he demands an audience with god to argue for his return.

The devils begins his address, “My Lord”…and god interrupts.

“First i am not your lord but a Comrade, second, are you crazy,as we all know i do not exist… why are are talking to nothing? ,

and third please hurry…i don’t want to miss the party meeting.”

from the book “Living in End Times” first published by Verso 2010 by Slavoj Zizek p. 401-402

Now humor i’m told, often includes a hint of truth.

Zizek continues,

“This is the kind of God, needed by the radical Left today: a God who has fully become a man, a comrade amongst us, crucified together with two social outcasts (the devil and propagandist), who not only does not exist but also knows this himself, accepts his own erasure,”

continuing

“passing over entirely into the love that binds all members of the “Holy Ghost” that is, of the Party or emancipatory collective.” (p.402)

narcissism is the narrative

a surgically enhanced Demi Moore taking photographs of herself and posting them on the internet…

Demi may be talented…but it does not co-relate

to the enormous influence she wields

not talent or personal worth

but circumstance…

millions are envious

The Next generation

80% of children think/believe they are special

which is another way of saying different/ better

yet lottery odds stand in the way this expectation…

oprah is dangerous

the way to meet expectations is to

visualize it, positive thought it, manifest it, 

further embedding the expectation

of an empty soul which is forever dissatisfied        

For example:

You want a new car/ a new relationship etc

and you can’t make it happen  because you don’t have the money, emotional maturity etc.

you are blocking you so…

visualize a car, a romantic interest , etc.

have positive thoughts about a car, a romantic interest, etc. 

and remove any negativity/ roadblocks/hang-ups

A car , a new romantic interest, etc. will manifest and if it doesn’t you’re doing it wrong.

                 Oprah cheats a little and  gives new cars away

and i’m sure some of the single women find boyfriends

Empowering People

to achieve their subjective goals has been over inflated and reduced to a cartoon in a celebrity/consumer driven culture…

we should get what we want and it should be easy…effortless…

Seduced

the age of seduction

an excess consumer society

needs lack in an imaginary sense

after all our basic needs have been met…

Noted

advertising plays on base emotions in the pursuit of profit…

and we free thinkers question neither the medium the message nor the means

lacking an ideology

we default to personal ambition

as the ultimate meaning maker…

this the marketers know

and it is so…

On a Personal Note 

Performed at a local bar which has been bought by the Seattle Harbor Authority…it is on the water and will be closing in a year or so…

i told a guy who thought he was Neal Young to play guitar

and kind of pushed my way onto stage…

i forgot most of the words in the poem…

except the first line and the last

but over all it went well…

i met a thirty year professor of literature, had a fight with a barmaid, forgot to leave a tip and was cut off.

i slept in my hybrid truck.

Poems for the Shaw

Glen Gould plays a way and progress is spotty for Poems for the Shaw.

Mona Mona says i must have nothing to do if i am still caught up in that history,  unfortunately my exceedingly shallow character is still looking for depth.

The old bird and the new bird are fine.

For my personal benefit       

if one is at odds with oneself

it is impossible to put one’s full attention

on any particular subject or endeavor

                    realigning in the fog.

better shopping for all…

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Tuesday 4 January 2011

Tuesday

Poetry is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

Poetry has little to offer outside of poetry itself.

Writing—on the other hand—is a much more dynamic space.

Poets chose to be poets because they do not have the drive to become something better.

Readers are a book’s aphorisms.

“If we had something to say would we chose the poem—with its sliver of audience and lack of cultural cache—as the arena to announce that opinion?”

poetry has more to learn from graphic design, engineering, architecture, cartography, automotive design, or any other subject, than it does from poetry itself.

Rules are guidelines for stupid people.

In poetry we applaud mediocrity and ignore radicality.

Poets should not be told to write what they know.

They don’t know anything, that’s why they are poets.”

derek beaulieu as published on  rob mclennan’s blog

My Dime

the self absorption of poetry has been well noted

                           only poets read other poets.

                   and only philosophers read other philosophers

 

the majority see no value

in poems or philosophical essays

Liberals Believe    

if u don’t share 

u don’t exist

which has a host

of assumptions

 

primarily

unless i see a reflection

how can i know i’m here

and even more basic

 

i don’t exist

unless I write/talk/blog/email/twitter/facebook 

 

poetry

and progress are not

easy bed fellows

 

poetry is anchored in language

 

while progress is anchored

in an ideology…

or a systemic belief..

 

Poetry 2

poetry is personal

and welcome reprieve

from the alienation

of our mass culture…

 

and mercifully 

has not been caught

in the cross hairs

of capitalism

 

There is still life

                please “unfriend” me.

Camus

life is meaningless

create meaning

life is absurd

does that make you feel happy?

creation requires a leap of faith?

Ring! Ring!

save the whales

save the apes

save the hummngbirds

save the oceans  

save the environment

save the biosphere

save the planet

save the banks

running i throw money into the fire… 

Monday 3 January 2011

An Economic Blog

A.

In western capitalism champions of the game…

are creating a culture of generosity;

Buffett is donating to the Gates foundation

and Soros is defending freedom…

          the big movers and shakers are shaping the planet.

B.

They will not be leaving

their inheritance

to family or government;

which shows little faith

in the institutions

that allowed for

the accumulation

of surplus labour.

        The laws, copyright and otherwise, were necessary…

                    

a tax avoidance/evasion strategy

has been given the status of virtue

with the simple use of the word charity.

 

before history

some tribes

were matriarchal

some viewed dourness

as a virtue  

most included jealousy

and not all were materialistic

though some were

 

those in

abundant areas

were more care free

than those living in scarcity.

 

News Flash 1

Being rich makes you happy…

with so many choices

it’s hard to be depressed.

 

Chicken soup for my soul

                              cash money…

wait wait wait

 

News Flash 2

i live by my convictions

or now must we choose a new morality

                             what i believe may not be true

                    anarchy…life

                 cries the liberal democrat as he listens to CBC

 

Only The Wealthy Have

the time and indulgence

for a good mix of urban

and less man made settings

 

nature lends herself

to contemplation

 

i’m not so sure about tweeter.

Facebook

Goldman Sachs and a Russian Investor

have invested $500,000,000 in facebook

this a prelude to them going public

i.e. listed on the stock market
go stanfard or is it harvord

 

From CBC The Hurried Child

The Pressure Of Modern Childhood

anxiety levels are

being raised in children

education is competitive,

preschoolers are

being prepared

for kindergarten…

 

the teachers repeat,

“Awesome, Good job…” 

 

             less play more structure

 

the parents say,

“They are playing they are not learning.”

    getting kids ready for market…

 

The Future of Schooling

we want our kids to be

super ready for school

the stakes are quite high

it’s a bit of an arms race

amongst parents

 

helicopter parenting

means children are less

resilient to set back

which is an emotional measure 

 

In a winner take all society

the competition starts early

                  this is a reflection of

“you don’t win silver you lose gold”

                        

my shit don’t  stink

                 by design only a few people will be famous

no one likes people who think they’re better

        we are children of our times

more so than our parents

 

“The Hurried Child”

to listen go to the CBC website

and and look under Ideas

      

Is what it means to be human? a question?

In the 1950’s about 12% of children

thought they were special…

In the 1990’s it was up around 80% 

Sunday 2 January 2011

A Religious Blog

a.

The privileged status of the believer is one of the key motivations for the belief

b.

“The liberty we prize is not America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift to humanity.” George W. Bush at the beginning of the current Iraqi war

c.

“*a fundamental belief in human progress animates the thought of the new atheist.”  

d.

a belief in authority is evolutionary because as children, adults or older people,  saved us from danger

e.

“Belief in its typical form, as psychoanalysis allows us to see, is incompatible with a properly politicized subjectivity                                                                    or an authentically engaged existence.”

f.

“Politics involves the realization that no omnipotent force determines the nature of social relations.” 

g.

the religious credo: the great chain: body, mind, spirit/soul

 

f.

i believe in the bible

because

i believe in the bible

in philosophy this is not considered a valid argument

 

Science

a young American

controls a drone

that shoots people

in Pakistan

more than a few dead.

 

m.

most of the good nations are

free…democratic/capitalistic and Christian

I.

religious beliefs and ideological commitments

                                     are not reducible to knowledge

j.

a belief in no belief is a belief

k.

make a leap of faith

                                           based on a belief

m.

now this requires intelligence

 

aside 

war ON                                                  

drugs/terror

Iraq/Afghanistan

                                        

war WITH

drugs/terror

Iraq/Afghanistan

 

 

sunday

a miltary man

gets off his shift

and goes to the casino

to watch football

 

h

a good religion.

   kill the hero and get a job…

 

On a personal note

i keep a fire burning all day

if this was to happen in the city

we would have no trees

i surmise

 

the new bird is eating

but will not sit on my finger

 

the clouds have cleared

and Glen Gould plays

the Bach variations

with candor

 

Poll

most business people

are predicting social unrest. 

Absurd

Saturday 1 January 2011

Saturday

During the Seventh Crusade an old woman walked 

with a dish full of fire in her right hand

and a bowl full of water in her left hand.

Asked why the two bowls, she answered

with the fire she would burn Paradise 

and with the water she would douse  the fires of Hell

Because she wanted no one

to do good

for the reward of Paradise,

or from fear of Hell;

                    but solely out of love (for God.)"

Today, this properly Christian ethical stance survives mostly in atheism.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/12/opinion/12zizek.html.

Political Joke

Why won’t Iraqi women

sleep with American soldiers?

because they say “they’ll pull out”

but they never do…

Commentary

Now one could say by making light of the situation in some sense we are lessening the dire straights of those in other parts of the world and in a sense we are…

and even as a dishwasher                                                                                  we would make jokes about our lives  

Post Modernism

talks around around 

that which it doesn’t know,

Here we are 
With the fall of communism ,

history was declared dead

and things would get better

           indefinitely

(for those in the know)               

The good people

vote democrat

live healthy lives

      support NGO’s

     applaud Chomsky

                 and believe in

                         the liberation

                                   of the subject/self/solely

 

Virtual World

Canadians have the option

of a second life on cyber vision

Somewhere Else

people still eat dirt cakes

 

Bukowski Says

humanity never had a chance

Finally

self destruction is an act of courage

and

the only truth about psychoanalysis

                                                            is it’s exaggeration. (Lacan)

Where I Live

This Saturday

the 1st day

of 2011 

a beautiful woman

serves coffee…

 

her hair is blond

her face is tanned

and her eyes

are pleading

for mercy…

saturday