Ineluctable Asininity

I haven’t decided what my primary topic of my annual year end blog will be about,

but I do know that I’m struggling in my efforts to ensure that it will be something

pleasant to read.This blog has had nearly 15000 views, and I truly do appreciate everyonewho takes the time to read it.

My Christmas dinner conversations went something like this…

Did you know that Wab Kinew wants to

expropriathomes in your community, and fill them with refugees etc?  

To which the response was “ Wab who?” 

“Oh, the same guy who wants to build more casinos, and liquor marts?”        

If the “globalists” have their way, you will own nothing and I guarantee

that you will certainly not be happy about it.I own a handful of sheep,

which graze on roughly 15 acres of land, and they’re hell bent on taking

them away too.  It meant that I’ve had to spend a considerable amount of time

talking to provincial ministers and municipal leaders,

defending my little patch of dirt, why is it such a big deal you ask?

Just wait until they come for yours. 

Reductio ad absurdum:    

Health care workers/ politicians referring to their work environment as an 

“ecosystem.” 

Sitting in a waiting room for 36 hours or more will earn you a place on

the endangered species list. 

It’s cheaper to buy a new electric razor than it is to buy replacement blades for it. 

It’s cheaper to buy a 40lb bag of dog food shipped in a cardboard box by a courier,

than it is to buy a full pallet of it at the store.  

Canadian tent cities. Need I say more?

….

I’m looking at 2024 like this: 

Pollievre will axe the tax and rub the feet of his new best friend Jagmeet.

A new president who's not Donald J. Trump will make November 5th a day to

remember.

We'll work, eat, and sleep... and breed more sheep!

One thing is for sure, the train isn’t stopping anytime soon.

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We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.  - Ayn Rand

The world we live in is vastly different from the world we think we live in 

- Nassim Taleb

Anthroposophy

 

It's year end again, and all I've got is a collection of fragmented thoughts. -  Elon's liberation campaign has left me sputtering and twittering about life on other planets; long live their flatness. 

Watch as our white Christmas turns to mush. - Said the Whale

I happened to listen to a radio discussion about how George Orwell painted a perfect picture of the great authoritarian figures, such as Mr. Putin and the Donald Trump. - No mention of their fascist counterparts.  Biden the Incompetent or Trudeau the Terrible.   The never ending call to sacrifice, and state sponsored fratricide. 

Right left, it's all the same. In a free society, one does not have to deal with those who are irrational. One is free to avoid them.   -Ayn Rand

Inflation is running rampant, and I'm quickly finding much in common with the Alaskan roadkill salvage  harvesters.  I recognize the dangers of having a poverty mindset, but the self-help folks take full advantage of that as well.  I read a comment the other day where a lady who subscribes to the "Unslaved" podcast says that she is so happy when she sees her monthly subscription payment come out. 

“It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights — the 'right' to education, the 'right' to health care, the right' to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery — hay and a barn for human cattle.”   - Alexis de Tocqueville

... 

My 3 year old claims to know all that there is to know about God, and currently asks questions such as these: If God is everywhere, and can do everything, why doesn't he heal me? He can't do it alone? Does he live too far away? Is the Doctor better? 

If weeds have all of these benefits to humans, animals, and soil... then they most definitely couldn't have been an after thought.  Does one then conclude that "the fallen" world, the chaos and destruction... is simply a matter of perspective?  

I'm not going to make any predictions or resolutions... only that whatever happens has already happened... or will happen again.  - You can thank history, for that. 

 

Mr. Anderson

The perfection of a convenient, efficient distribution network is undoubtebly a necessary component of our "modern" existance.  The problem is that it has all but eliminated local butchers, bakers, and small farms. We are so addicted to technology, and think we can cancel hatred, racism, and discrimination by boycotting and condemning guys like Joel Salatin for being white supremacists, simply because they get up in the morning and feed their herbivorous solar converting carbon sequestering fertilization units.

You can live in the Matrix so long as you are ingesting the choices that are being offered.  The lies and disinformation that is being served by the right and left are equally as unplatable. The red pill might appear to be the more logical choice for some… but it really truly becomes an addiction. Right wing disinformation is being pumped in with such incredible speed that it makes doing conclusive fact based research nearly impossible.

I read a sign saying:  Freedom Convoy 2022 - Supporting LGBTQ Truckers. If that was what it was really about would the Emergency Act has been invoked? Absolutely not. Slaves, puppets, and masters...the corruption abounds. There is certainly some remedy in the common law, but it is costly and it can only go so far. Contracting with the devil is still a dangerous game regardless of your uppercase or lower case claim to fame.   

Regenerative agriculture, permaculture, and living holistically inspires hope. It is so absolutely critical to recognize that despite how smart we think we are, nature does things better than we ever could... but we also have the ability to form and shape the outcome. There is a significant difference between reacting to a situation and responding to it with predetermined action. We can't solve the world's problems, but we can work towards self sustainability, find ways to meet the needs of the local community

 “The tragic reality is that very few sustainable systems are designed or applied by those who hold power, and the reason for this is obvious and simple: to let people arrange their own food, energy and shelter is to lose economic and political control over them. We should cease to look to power structures, hierarchical systems, or governments to help us, and devise ways to help ourselves.”
-      Bill Mollison

Atlas Shrugged.

Tis time for my annual scribblings. My good friends from Yandexland still check in on me every now and again, so that’s something right?  I haven’t received any recent blog requests from my “super fans” recently though, what’s up with that?  Having said that, I don’t know that I really care one way or the other. You have either chosen the red or the blue pill, and for all the contrarians out there, an dastardly shade of purple.

Isn’t that where life is really lived anyway? The grey zones… the periphery… the implied. 

Saying goodbye to the creature comforts that are taken for granted won't necessarily be pleasant. You may very well be find yourself eating grasshopper stew day in and day out.  -The perks of continuously updating government issued ration cards I suppose.

This coming year is going to be a wonderful chance to move past all of the noise.

Here's to 2022.   Let's Go Brand..  oops. haha

Carassius Auratus Paeluis

 

This isn’t so much a blog as it is a memorandum for the remnant. The world is changing and it’s hard to just sit by and watch it fall apart. I don’t care what your opinion is on the matter… it’s wrong, plain and simple. There are probably people who have and will be able to predict what is about to happen with some degree of accuracy, but that is as good as it’s going to get.  

Self-sufficiency, anti-fragility, and resiliency are the buzzwords of the day. Each one of those things would inspire the world to action if it weren’t for Anne Frank. Locked down for years, eating nothing but beans only to be hauled away and burned. If the earth is flat or round it doesn’t much matter because you can’t fly around or across it right now without your immunity badge pinned to your sleeve anyway.

Someone was trying to sell a guestbook the other day. I picked it up on the cheap, so if any of you all are planning to visit this year, I’ll be in the log cabin outback. - Social distancing measures may or may not apply, check with your health minster who may or may not be on vacation in Costa Rica.  

Here’s to another year… oh the joy oh the bliss.  :P

Falcipennis Canadensis

It’s probably not a good idea to start writing an article that will never resolve itself. Isn’t content creation the art of pawning off honey flavoured spread? Just like the prairie chicken that visits my yard each and every year, I can’t help but feel like even the best ideas are permeated with undesirable regurgitations.

Why do we pay eco fees on bottled water, when the bottles are made from recycled material? It seems as though this big push toward sustainable living is mostly theory riddled with impracticalities. Youtube provides a small glimpse into the lives of many of these adventurous types, but in recent days you’ll discover that they’re starting to drop like flies. They blame it on burnout, and the decreased revenue from their channels since the tube has been restructured. Keeping those sponsors happy, must be awfully stressful; maybe life on the grid wasn’t so bad after all.

What I’m trying to say is that I have quite a bit of respect for the people who post great content without any regard for whether or not they stand to profit by it. Anyone who says that they are passionate about educating people… is really saying they are in the business of monetizing their product. Not much different than televangelists if you ask me. It's not that I have a problem with upgrading to 4K, and I understand that you can only do that if you are generating revenue.I don't much appreciate the notion of catering to an agenda.

I also watched part of the grey cup game today, and got thinking about the millions of dollars that our province pays our team to keep losing every year. I couldn’t help but think that even though its “unsustainable”… and finding a free online stream took quite awhile. Nevermind. Haha

This blog post will mark 10,000 views. Most of which come from our good friends in Russia, apparently.

 
Привет а также благодарю вас.

 
Thanks everyone for your encouragement, and for taking the time to read my ramblings.

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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/manitoba-finances-deficit-blue-bomber-loan-1.4839478

Obsequious Hubris

It seems like it has been an awful long time since I have had a chance to sit down and write anything that is worth showcasing. I’m not yet sure what I will talk about today, but in the spirit of the holidays I will try to keep it short and sweet.

I went downtown on Dec. 26^th, thinking that I could maybe pick up a few Christmas lights at a discount, but all of the stores were closed. I guess that’s one of the realities of living in a small town. Family is more important than the biggest retail sales days of the year. - Either that or everyone is at home digging into the homemade eggnog.

One day I happened to walk by the TV, when a caller addressed the hosts of the show with “Merry Christmas, and I don’t care if you’re Christians or not.” It’s one thing to choose tradition over political correctness; it’s quite another to rub it in someone else’s face.

I’m not much into making New Year’s resolutions, but I do have a friend who made it their goal to read 60 books each year. I decided to attempt half of that. I usually come close to hitting my goal, and it helps to keep me on the hunt for new and interesting books to read.

I’m beginning to suspect that 2017 will be the death of Facebook. *When you post a status update of 35 characters or less, the update is assigned the larger font by default. Lovely.   -Everything else is just advertisement, but you don’t need me to tell you that.

Twitter will survive, because Trump won’t without it. -America won’t be great again, and it likely won’t get any better, but perhaps I don’t care anymore.

I’ve just about run out of predictions, which is fine, because it reduces the odds that I could be wrong.

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There is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agenda-less kindness.  - David Foster Wallace

Looking out into it the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations. - Alan Watts

Presidential squabble, gobble, gobble.

Clamshells open, fingers fly, good ones here, bad ones there. 

It wasn’t all that long ago that I happened to be at the local grocery store, and just so happened to witness the craziest thing. There was a customer who had opened 5 or 6 cartons of blueberries and was picking out all of the bad ones from the carton that he had decided to take and was exchanging them for better ones that were in the other boxes.

This is only a rather disgusting story by itself, but if I add a few more details it becomes much more interesting. It’s not the sort of thing I would do, but from a consumers point of view it's somewhat understandable. However, this particular individual also happens to operate a local media outlet. Which begs the question, what kind of news does he/she choose to broadcast/publish? If he/she only chooses the juiciest berries, would it not also be plausible that the intended audience never really sees the whole picture?

Coincidentally the final Presidential debate will air tonight. It will be an hour and half spent talking about nothing. Yet, you can’t say that government doesn’t have a role to play. It’s just that nobody really cares about infrastructure, until it’s in a state of disrepair or about unemployment numbers until they’re out of work.  

Having said all that… it’s thanksgiving weekend… so relax, eat well, and buy frozen blueberries next time you decide you’d like to make a pie.   

Exeleutherostomized Coprolalia

I haven't watched the Force Awakens yet, it's not that I won't, but I really don't like the idea of adding my hard earned pocket change to the billions of dollars it has "forcibly convoked" so far. You would think that Disney's stock price would continue to climb, but, so far, it has done exactly the opposite. They are losing ESPN subscribers at a very alarming rate. They blame the millenials for cord cutting, which could very well be partially true, but I think they have a much larger problem on their hands. It's much more probable that the reason that they are losing customers has more to do with marketing overkill than anything else. Who really wants to watch 40 minutes of advertising for every 20 minutes of game time. Who wants to watch all stars, who are often paid an annual salary in the millions of dollars, pump themselves up with every sort of drug imaginable? What about the families that are affected by chronic traumatic encephalopathy?

The most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about - David Foster Wallace

When a husband says that his wife is a terrible mother...it makes everything Trump has ever said seem less maniacal. It isn't my place to say how anybody else should raise their family, but it is terribly upsetting to see an egoist claim that he's a "great father"in the very same breath. O'Leary might have earned his place on Santa's Notley list, but at least he recognizes that it's important to have (business) partners whose strengths compensate for his weaknesses. - It's a rather amusing reflection; even if it's marble topped, there are still some things that money can't buy.

Together we can face this wildness and walk hand-in-hand into the etcetera. - Margaret Laurence

Today's blog entry will be short and sweet, and might even end happily ever, but that would be too predictable. Instead I'll leave you with a beautifully tragic alternative, and we'll try to forget that global warming might very well spin out another Death Star.

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Under a Streetlight

She could have had
Anything she wanted
My heart devoid of care
She set my soul on fire

She used me up
She left me drunk
On the cold cement
I could not speak a word

She left me
In the depths of my depravity
There was a sadness all around

My skin crying for a touch
No matter how cold
To bring feeling back

If you ever wondered
I'm right where you remember
If you ever wanted
To take my breath away - K.B.

Gridlock

It’s not the deep dark secrets that haunt you; it’s the awareness that sharing the things in your head is as ridiculous as trying to walk with stilts on wheels.  Anyone can write about happy things, but a writer sees more than that. It’s not very often that one wakes up to see hoarfrost on the spider webs and finds peanuts in places where the clever old blue jay had hidden them for the winter. - It’s rather odd to think that atypical weather patterns might very well be the new normal. 

     

I’m not exactly sure how history will remember Trudeau the 2^nd… but so long as twice the fool doesn’t become thrice the dunce...   but one thing is certain he’s making some of the things happen that he said he would, which was something governments aren’t usually known to do.

Trump says all sorts of things that he has absolutely zero intention of doing.  The part where he isn’t writing the script is rather remarkable. Somewhere along the way… his team of tycoons has convinced America that Patriotism always wins. – It’s not difficult.   The current administration is spending $1.6billion every single day on military operations; just think how many miles of fence that would build. He gives the illusion that democracy is working, and recognizes that people will do anything you want them to… so long as they believe that it was their idea.  Yes, his tactics are unconventional, but I predict that his presidential run will only be cut short by one of two things… assassination… or if the media refuses to give him any air time.

It’s rather unfortunate that racial and religious differences never seem to make it past the debate stage. The CBC recently announced that it will not allow any online comments on Indigenous issues.  I certainly recognize and understand why they have made that decision. However, I also think that despite the fact that certain comments and remarks are inappropriate, it doesn’t mean that they are necessarily wrong. We’ve all heard the phrase “We just want to bring attention to the issues that our people are facing.” Yet, somewhere along the way adjustments have to be made.

CBC Indigenous Commenting: Editors Blog

CBC closes comments on indigenous stories after 4th comments moderator dies

Political correctness only works until the people realize that the emperor doesn't have any clothes. Merkel is on the cover of time magazine today, but it won't be long before she is ushered out the back door.  - Trudeau was recently featured in Vogue so you need not despair.  

Jeremiadically Loquacious

One of the problems with reading really beautiful authors, is that it leaves you feeling like there’s no point in even trying to match them. It’s not that they don’t inspire thoughts, idea, and a million fragments of possibility, but it seems they escape the mind far too soon to be useful. 

Given that I also have the inexplicable tendency to voice that which is beyond comprehension; I’ll share  a previously unpublished notation: If it is possible to fathom the possibility of anxious lovers contending over an individual, then it is all the more likely that the said recipient may at some point reciprocate.  

Supposedly an adult makes thousands of decisions every single day, but nobody ever talks about the millions of sub-conscious assumptions that are made.

Wisdom grows out of being handed just the smallest sliver of emotion.    - Michael Ondaatje

Sometimes I make speculations about the most innocuous things. It seemed logical to me that the likelihood of blinking would increase whenever there was a natural break in concentration. So, I did a little bit of research and found that my theory was at least partially confirmed by a previous study: The synchronized blinks occur at “non-critical” points during the movie - at the conclusion of an action sequence or when the main character disappears from view.

… I can't trust that we do not extend beyond our persons because 

memory is a fickle, rudimentary executioner…  - wordofthewillow DA

Did you ever marvel at the fact that an outdoor trampoline is targeted by birds large + small alike? It's an anomaly that closely mirrors demographically targeted advertising. Just ask Kellogg’s to verify if in fact they sell more cereal because it’s the #1 fibre to promote your digestive rhythm. (Senior citizens will still have the majority... even when Harper doesn't.) 

I’m still not sure if it was Chad or Avril who wrote “ thought we were meant to be”… but clearly his someday somehow mantra wasn’t cutting it any more…. so much for the Pez dispenser.

Curmudgeonly Egregious

 Does anyone remember the days when their friends would talk about their Columbia House subscription?  Oh what a penny could buy!  (It's an interesting read, for those of you that have the time.) Coincidentally, the U.S. government recently announced that it will scale back their data collection of phone calls sent and received by regular civilians. Yet, up until Snowden blew the whistle on them… they denied that such a “program” existed.  

• I like the idea of using the letters NSA in an online document; it all but guarantees that “someone” will read it! 

Sometimes when the internet connection is pitifully slow, I’ll play Minesweeper while I wait. The game is designed in such a way that there is only one rule…  “If you don’t know, don’t go.”  I'm not going to make "insightful" generalizations about navigating the minefield of life… but I do think it’s interesting that we tend to make things way more complicated than they are.  How many times have you heard phrases such as… “Be the ball!” It’s rather like saying…. “Imagine that the spherical mass attached to your body has detached itself and you’ll do just fine!”      - The ox is slow, but the earth is patient.  

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Whether or not you are an MMA fan or not… those three letters, are all too often, on prominent display in the headline news.  I’m not going to go into great depth about how a young girl, but articles such as this are incredibly sobering. (Human Trafficking Charges. 

The anguish, the shame, and the horror etched in her face is nearly unbearable. 
* This image was originally included in the article.

I understand why they didn’t allow comments on the article, but what shook me to the core was the thought that by putting all of the blame on her, it somehow absolves the rest of us from any wrongdoing. It's easy to say that the system is broken, but I'm absolutely convinced that it doesn't have to be. 

Phonetically Frenetic.

For any of you who might be wondering when the new Lifehouse album would be coming out; the answer is very soon; which is great. Anyway… our good friend Wikipedia says that Jason Wade’s father was a marriage counsellor… but his parents divorced when he was 12. There likely isn’t an organization who would hire him now, based on his credibility, but in my opinion… does that not give him the most comprehensive of vantage points? It’s interesting to think that the anachronistic probability of this apparent dichotomy is so incredibly remote that its occurrence is all the more intriguing.  There tends to be a pre-conceived notion that simply by following the formulas prescribed by people with successful marriages that achieving the same results should automatically be replicable. Success and failure are about as predictable as the whiskey jack who follows you down a nature path simply because you’ve piqued his curiosity.

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My personal data isn’t worth the time and effort of those who seek to sell it to the people who say they aren’t buying it. I don't really have any particular desire to feed the system any more than I have to though, so I’ve rather deliberately chosen to pursue a lifestyle of technological distancing; well at least theoretically .Unfortunately the economy of scale is all powerful and isn’t really interested in listening to querulous borogroves. - Certainly not when you could be drumming up market share by bringing the internet drone to whichever continent finds itself deserving of the most lucrative government contract. 

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.

                                                                                             – Aristotle; Great Grandfather of the Goognormous Empire.

I am planning to cancel my internet subscription for the summer and I’m quite looking forward to it.  I don’t have any intentions of boycotting indefinitely, as it would come at the expense of losing connections that I wouldn’t otherwise have. It's interesting to think how thoughts and lives that are shared in the online is something that no previous generation has ever experienced. I’ve been part of an art community called Deviant Art for quite some time and I recently happened upon the following:

5:30 am, get up and get ready for them to pump poison into my veins. I don’t mind my hair falling out, it’s this damned pain that always returns, no matter what new medicine they give me. Four hours of sitting, doing nothing, then feeling weak and disoriented afterwards. Fun times, huh? I only need thirty-seven naps a day. Try to make myself eat and drink water. 124 lbs I weigh… my girlfriend looks at me with sad eyes. She thinks I’ll die soon. Maybe I will, I don’t know. But for now, it’s off to chemo.

Several people posted tributes in his memory. You can read one of them here if you wish; it’s short.  For Ron    Much of his work can be found here: http://bark.deviantart.com/

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I don’t have any sort of fancy conclusion… but I will include one last quote.  Just because…  :P

A person who longs to leave the place where he lives is an unhappy person.
                                                                                                 –  Milan Kundera

Prescient Concomitance

Painters will tell you that first you start with the broad brush strokes… and then you fill in the details afterwards…. writing is sort of the opposite. You write about the things that you are thinking about, and then pray and hope that somehow it comes out right.

You can talk all you want about the armchair cynic, and about how ridiculous human nature is; It wants what it wants... until it has it, then it doesn't. Unless of course when you consider that the number of topics is illimitable, it makes the declaration of a stated direction more of an ambiguous prevarication than anything else.

Longing and desire goes further than instant satisfaction; that's human nature. - Anna Sui

Believe it or not, mastering of the art of public manipulation isn’t a particularly flattering self descriptor, but it will guarantee you a job pretty much anywhere. . However, for us melancholics sitting in the back row, it’s not difficult to see that the puppeteers hardly have to move a finger and yet they almost always get the desired result. There is a most peculiar correlation between genius and the coinciding belief in conspiracy theories. Even in the face of categorical and logistical evidence that points out inherent flaws, a fundamental belief isn’t easily overruled.

There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.- A. Tennyson

It’s easy to see how the argument for establishing a state of equilibrium via introduction of law + order quickly culminates with gradational equivocations. There is nothing particularly insightful to be gained by observing the world in the most perspicaciously unobtrusive way possible, but it’s even more curious still is the abundance of novels that feature reclusive gravediggers and courtesans.

You can only be so warm, so dry, and so full… after that it’s irrelevant. – D. Wells

I’ve never been very good at writing poetry, but often times it captures those rather curious incidents in life and expresses them… in the only way that they possibly could be.
That’s the beauty of writing, it’s black and white on the surface, but it’s so much more than that.

A Spigoted Entendre

It took me a long time to get the first words of this blog on paper, but as I sat there with my mind aimlessly wandering I noticed that several keys still have their factory texture. It’s rather strange to think that giving voice to the susurrous murmurings is as simple as assigning individual characters to their respective places. However, it really doesn’t matter what particular topic I settle on because:

"The audience waits in a kind of hebetudinous fixation, perhaps astonished at the perfectly sustained level of mediocrity." - Kevin Kelly

My girlfriend suggested that I talk about how I rescued her rabbit from certain death, but it just chewed through my cell phone cord, so now it’s just an extremely lucky rodent who has been spared twice.

In this sequestered vale of star and spire… shadowed among the embers, furled in flame, the splendour and the sadness of the world.  – Fitzgerald 

I came across a news blurb about this guy, who just might be on to something: 

Danish director Lars von Trier fears he won't be able to make more films because he has quit drinking alcohol and no longer uses drugs.

* I promise you that I am not currently under the influence of any foreign substance, nor are my rather sporadic, if not entirely accidental, strokes of genius derivatives of such an obvious and well proven channel of LSD induced creativity. 

It’s quite possible that financial accounts managers make more money selling their advice than they do on the stocks they trade. The long and the short of it is that if you can turn a hobby into something that generates cash… you’re smarter than the guy who isn’t. There is much to be said about how a happy employee is more profitable one. Depending on who is making the argument it all comes down to this; the references provided on a resume will either confirm or refute one’s ability to repeatedly execute a variety of mundane tasks.
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It’s not difficult to form opinions, and weigh in on a multitude of pertinent social issues. I was listening to the radio today, and no matter which station I chose it was either playing Christmas tunes, or some talk show host was talking about volunteering or post-festivity weight loss. I'd much rather be escorted through time and space in a saga such as Interstellar, than in a seasonably dependent drama in which Ebenezer Scrooge is escorted by incorporeal beings.  - Needless to say… I have need to busy my mind with quietude. 

Sublunary Denizens

Life has a most uncanny way of following a predetermined trajectory. We tend to concern ourselves with the wish to make a difference in the world, but the greatest of human accomplishments are brought to reality on the backs of those who will not benefit from them at all.

Big Brother does more than hide behind closed circuit security cameras; he spends most of his time pushing a political agenda. The U.S. announced that they will crush Islamic State of Iraq by whatever means necessary. ISIS responded by saying that they are going to fight back. The media then tells us that the “backlash” is propaganda.  You would think that when you send troops + news agencies to wander aimlessly throughout unappreciative foreign countries you should expect that they might take issue with it, would you not?

The greater the state, the more wrong and cruel its patriotism, and the greater is the sum of suffering upon which its power is founded. -Leo Tolstoy

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Most people say that the nice thing about living in a small town is that everyone knows everybody. The weekly activity is religiously documented, and having ones picture featured in the newspaper isn’t even a novelty. - I see that they’re looking for a new reporter, if anyone is interested they should definitely apply.

Are monsters born, created, or are they simply fed? Is it any wonder that they are very likely to re-offend? Thankfully there is at least one group who has made it their mission to rehabilitate these types of people, and by all accounts they have had very positive results: Circles of Support and Accountability

Everyone wants to believe that they’re doing something worthwhile and that they have some sort of unique purpose. It’s a wonderful sentiment, but I am persuaded that both of those things take a great deal more effort than most people are willing to exert. 

   

“I am what happens between the maternity ward and the Crematorium”
― Alan  Watts

I believe that I am not responsible for the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of life, but that I am responsible for what I do with the life I've got.”
― Hermann Hesse

Recondite Loquacity

I’ve been trying to determine what the topic of the day should be, but I find that navigating by land description… NE-14-23-35-W5… is easier than searching for new topics brindled with inspirational mirth. So, I will lean on some of the good folks who have posted on Deviant Art to weigh in with some of their thoughts:

For what is right in contexts so complex we cannot test? - Colornote

We could debate the issue of moral absolutes for eternity… and yet we will always manipulate the argument so that they provide some sort of justification for our own actions.

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Told he has cancer, he’s been given 3 months to live. He’s already dead, or so he says.

Pointless words.
Pointless actions.
All leading to what?
If this isn't life and we can't hope for death...
What else is there?
- JDWate

I’m not sure why it is that we admire it when people who know they are facing imminent death have a positive attitude about it. Why is it so uncomfortable to witness someone concede defeat so easily?
…

There is no escaping the thoughts and endless repetitiveness that constitutes the human component that is said to separate us from other life forms. It’s most interesting to note that we have such an incredibly difficult time with being labelled different than the group that is considered the majority.

The list of problematic symptoms that Borderline Personality Disorder brings is endless, and I’m still reeling from the shock that I even have it. No one really knows what causes it exactly; a cocktail of neurological, environmental and genetic factors seems to be the most common cause. It’s something I didn’t even bring upon myself, but is in part thanks to just the way my brain was wired from the start. It makes me feel kind of helpless, almost. To know that this was something unavoidable, something that was always going to afflict to me no matter what.   -itselliegasp

...

When faded falls to monochrome just stay calm and carry on.

Massey Ferguson

I find that as a writer it is always difficult to talk about current world events, because they are so quickly forgotten. The interesting thing about stories is just how dramatically they change when they are presented from another point of view.

...

Cops are killing black guys for no reason at all; or so they say

While yet another aboriginal girl is found in a plastic bag

Racism is alive and well; so they say

An American journalist is headless

 It's an all out declaration of war

...

History is simply the documented record of the most popular narrative. It kind of makes you wonder how differently things would look if it was possible to integrate cultures seamlessly.  

A lady in Winnipeg inadvertently destroyed her husband’s chance of winning the current mayoral race, because of a comment made several years ago.  She said that she dislikes walking downtown because of all the drunken Indians. The media is in a uproar and the general public is upset that she would make such an insensitive comment.  The truth is that it’s a problem because we have allowed it to be one.

I would hate to be the guy that gets hired for a job on the basis of a mandated ethnic diversity policy; rather than by a  perceived ability to perform the task. However, that's how they pick candidates for university, so I guess there isn't really any difference.

You may point out the brokenness of the justice system and all the ways in which it fails, but you can’t say that it doesn’t have a purpose. It wouldn’t come as a surprise if I were to tell you that selfishness is the most influential motivation of human behaviour.

If it wasn't for religion and politics... we might all have the wherewithal to co-exist in a more harmonious manner. Maturity is simply the ability to comprehend the needs of others as well as your own.

“And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human." - Kurt Vonnegut

Malfeasance of Solecisms

I find that it’s much more difficult to write during the dog days of summer than in the drudgerious* throes of winter. It’s not that I don’t have all sorts of pleasant things to talk about, but anachronisms aren’t an appreciated novelty so I’ll simply carry on. Airplanes are dropping out of the sky nearly every day, and they keep telling me that death by Ebola is quite likely.

It seems that I’m up to my knees in bees; when you work at an apiary sleep is nothing but a distant memory. Much like the thousands of moths left clinging to the side of a steel clad building in the early morning; completely oblivious to the absence of the night that was.

Controversial as they may be, Vonnegut + Ondaatje paint the world in such a way that fiction and reality coalesce so as to be entirely indiscernible. The following quotes are evidence enough:

“In the beginning, God created the earth, and he looked upon it in his cosmic loneliness.
And God said, "Let us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what we have done." And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close to mud as man sat, looked around, and spoke. "What is the purpose of all this?" he asked politely.

"Everything must have a purpose?" asked God.

"Certainly," said man.

"Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this," said God. And He went away.”
―Kurt Vonnegut


“Death means you are in the third person.”

" Everyone has to scratch on the walls somewhere or they go crazy."

―Michael Ondaatje


Both of these authors make a living by vividly descriptive aberrations of human existence, laced with tantalizing satire. They do very little to inspire change, but neither did Obama really. However, neither one of them comes close to being as profound as this:

Since God created the world, He also created reality.

― Pope Francis

* Drudgerious -  A word that I happily invented.

Numinous Sophistry

Unable to explain the mysteries of the cosmos, we bask in the light of a lunar eclipse and entrust our fate to an amputated rabbit foot.  There’s something so incredibly beautiful when the alignment of the stars, forces people to believe in previously disregarded superstitions. Very seldom do we bother to come to terms with our own ambivalence.  

The spider trails cover the grass as far as the eye can see. They’re not designed to catch insects; they just get the arachnids to and from where they need to be.

Whether we realize it or not, we rationalize and compartmentalize every aspect of our lives. We make plans, set objectives, and set aside money for retirement.  There is certainly a reward for hard work, but the reality is that our lives follow an extremely aleatory trajectory.

Stealing photographs is the cruelest game of all; they’re the one thing that can’t be replaced.

It doesn’t take us long to realize that we’re just a mindless mob running around with good intentions. There are thousands of religions and philosophies saying that we must “let go” and “live in the moment.” There is likely some benefit in doing so, but we tend to see the world in terms of past and present, or spend our time searching for enlightenment. However, it’s also true that spinning around in circles going nowhere at all is more of a default setting than a conscience choice.

Preparing a dog for a fight involves beating it mercilessly; it’s the pass time of choice for the aristocracy.

Intellectual assent, and verbal affirmation of commitment to devote ones self to a higher cause approaches incomprehensibility. It’s only when we see ourselves as perpetrators of injustice are we able to recognize that there’s more life than our own obscurity.  Perspective isn’t something that is attainable in absolute terms, but every now and again the kaleidoscope reveals a glimpse of something beyond that which has been experienced previously.

The following is an intriguing excerpt from the book Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan:

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.