The Free Speech Zone - Recommended Diaries

I couldn't give less of a shit what happens to this country.

mplo — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 01:29:10 GMT

Okay, folks;

I'm here to say that what happens to this country is going to happen, and all the voting, marching, protesting, letter-writing, and emailing or telephoning Congressmen/women, State Reps and state governors, etc. in the world will not change that, imho.
I have recently switched from the Democratic Party to the Independent Party (only it's called "Unenrolled" in the city where I've resided for the past 22 years), and, maybe, just maybe, if a truly decent Democrat emerges, I might rejoin the Democratic Party. Until then, I'm staying where I am.

It's pretty disgraceful that we Americans are reduced to accepting mediocre or half-baked things and politicians at best, having jobs outsourced so that things are made in little third-world countries, and often have cheap, lousy quality. One gets what they pay for these days, which sucks.

I wouldn't even cry crocodile tears if something were to unexpectely befall the President of the United States. Underneath all that slickness and statemanlike manner, he's a phony through and through and is clearly quick to give a handshake and a backslap before turning right around and screwing those who voted him into office. Since I didn't vote for him, I don't feel it that much. Frankly, though, I'd just as soon sit by and watch his Presidency go down in flames. I haven't the least bit of an interest in doing anything to help save it, either.

The fact that we show no signs of getting out of Iraq or Afghanistan, and continue to kill innocent civilians and our own soldiers, by escalating our wars in and illegally occupying those two countries is beyond disgraceful, as is the passage of that toxic body of legislature called a "Healthcare Reform" bill, because this Democratic Administration and the Democrats in Congress didn't have the stones to do away with that 20 year old GOP written "HCR" bill, go back to the drawing board, put their heads together and construct and implement a real, genuine healthcare reform bill that entailed Single Payer with Universal Healthcare. It's beyond disgraceful that the Obama Administration and the Democrats in Congress took the easy way out and passed this toxic Republican POS body of legislature called a "Healthcare Reform" bill. Don't get me wrong, folks. I'm no less supportive of healthcare reform in the country than you and tons of other people are. However, there are too many things wrong with the bill that was just passed for it to be feasible. The fact that there are no cost controls on this bill, that the protections won't kick in for several years, and that abortion rights were taken off the table in order to get it passed, is beyond disgraceful.

As for the recent oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico, it's well beyond disgraceful that the Obama Administration allowed BP to proceed with this extremely dangerous, risky deep-water offshore oil-drilling job that was 100 miles offshore and not only took the lives of 11 oil rig workers, but has destroyed ecosystems that sustain all other forms of life, including human life, killed the Gulf, and decimated the lives, livelihoods, health, welfare and well-being of thousands, if not millions of people residing in the Gulf area. What's even more disgraceful is the fact that the Obama Administration allowed BP to continue to handle the situation as well. No matter what is done to plug up the gush, nothing will be permanent, or make up for what's happened to the Gulf, the ecosystems, or the people whose lives, livelihoods and health really depended upon the Gulf.

Frankly, I think that any good that this Administration has done has been greatly overshadowed by how they've handled the above-mentioned issues and other things. I don't like the GOP, or Sara Palin, because I don't agree with her stances on things, but you know what? Maybe, just maybe if we did end up with another GOP President in the White House, or heaven forbid.....Sara Palin, the American people at large would learn a good lesson. It's needed.

I admit that I've never been a big fan of helping to right the wrongs in this country, or the world at large, nor do I have the capacity, or interest in even attempting to develop the capacity for righting the world's wrongs.

Oh, and here's something else you may be interested in; I held a job in the customer service department of a local publishing company for 16 years before I was turned out on my ass. Although most of my years there were good ones, and it wasn't the most interesting job in the world, it gave me a sense of pride, because I was independent and earning my own way. The last few years there, however, things changed, and a trashy little two-bit whore was brought in to supervise things in our department.

She assessed the situation, assessed me, decided that I wasn't fit to go out and make a living like most people, and
so I was the first to be tossed out. Since then, I've not been able to get even any steady part-time work. That itsy-bitsy, trashy two-bit whore of a supervisor they brought in saw to that. It's been years since I left that snakepit of a place, and I later learned that she slept around with the bosses and male co-workers to earn what little power she had. Disgusting trash, that one. If sleeping around with bosses and co-workers to earn favors and/or power isn't whorish behaviour, then I don't know what it is.

And so, my pride was bruised. My independence and my living was ripped out from under me, and that lousy tramp helped do it. I have not forgiven her, nor would I extend an olive branch to her if I saw her again. hey...come to think of it...I wonder how that bitch would've done as a real, paid prostitute, or as a Madam who ran a brothel somplace? I bet she would've done beautifully, although it's hard to know what any guy(s) in their right mind(s) would really see in her that was any good.

Sure, I do my silversmithing and occasional piano-tuning when I can get any, but it would be nice if I could have some steady part time work, and flexibility. I was independent, in that I was able to make more of my own decisions on some stuff, and that's gone, too. It sucks, but there's nothing I can do about it. Yes, folks, I care only about myself and my own llife, mostly, and there's nothing that can be done about it.

I couldn't care less about the Corrie family or their daugher, or about the Palestinians, or about the fact that the people who resisted mandatory school busing here in Boston helped screw it up, either. I have no desire to become involved in the highflown, lofty causes and issues of the day and I never will.

Open Dead: Turn On Chainsaw Inside The Asshole, Repeat

Jack's Smirking Revenge — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 06:40:48 GMT

U.S. Intelligence Planned To Destroy Wikileaks in 2008:

http://file.wikileaks.org/file...

Iceland Got Fucked In The Financial Collapse And Here's A Leak Of Correspondence During That Period:

http://file.wikileaks.org/file...

And The CIA Swaying Public Opinion In An Intelligence Op On All Of Us:

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/CIA_...
From Page 3 of the Foreign Intelligence Service Report Regarding Destroying Wikileaks.org:

Wikileaks.org uses trust as a center of gravity by assuring insiders, leakers, and
whistleblowers who pass information to Wikileaks.org personnel or who post information to the Web site that they will remain anonymous. The identification, exposure, or termination of
employment of or legal actions against current or former insiders, leakers, or whistleblowers
could damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others from using Wikileaks.org to make
such information public.

Fight Club Open Thread

cometman — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:48:37 GMT

Evidently Tyler Durden wasn't the first one with this idea.

Flutter Wings

donkeytale — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:04:47 GMT

I have an idea. Ok. Its kinda fucked up. I've been thinking about contacting my first ex-wife and apologizing sincerely for breaking up with her when our daughter was so jung. I still envision that dreadful day that can never be taken back...my daughter's crying, her pleading two year old baby face savaging me in that awfulest moment when I stepped out of Maria's VW for the final time, my little grrl wailing in the rain as her mother sped off angrily and left me to my own desserts.

I saw Maria again, first time in decades, at our daughter's wedding awhile back...she's remarried, serious, middle aged, matronly, together. Married to an old skkkool Southern gentleman as far from me as La. is from LA.

I was nervous about the meeting but Frau Tale took to her immediately, liked her right away. I stood off to the side with Maria's husband, awkwardly sharing an Italian beer or two mostly in silence, while our two wives kibbitzed happily.

="Pete never changed".

Frau Tale reported Maria's candid assessment later in the hotel room with the commanding view of the massive apartment complex they built atop Ebbetts Field on the day Amerikkka died.

=She feels very, very sorry for you. How everythings turned out.
Another phone call I need to make is to this woman in New Orleans. I spent two years with her there in the middle 90s.

New Orleans is where I should have gone and stayed.

Lena's a successful businesswoman and amateur ballerina, a powerhouse, demure Southern sweetness in total control.

Over you.

I captured her in my hands and felt the dust of her fluttering wings on my fingers. I sawed her heart in two but in so doing it was I who bled out.

The worst death imaginable, the one that doesnt kill you, the one that you can't imagine and never feel sneaking into place behind you.

Recently, I searched her company website and there she was, looking as coolly serene and everwise, a graceful fortress of feminine vulnerability in total control.

Over you.

There's reasons I chose, there's ego issues, there's stupid, nonsensical, manhood failures. There's the fact that my son was just a baby at the time. She had two little kidz and I couldnt bring myself to raise hers and leave mine behind. They are in college now and he's in high skool. And I didnt really raise him up, anyway.

Damn it!

I can still feel my resentment rising off the prison wall in somebody's fancy Uptown mansion.

We spent every weekend together, mostly in bed, making love five times, ten times, while I picked the lock to her soul in that upstairs bedroom which overlooked the pool, the guest house, the rotting garden of my excess.

She told her elderly, Catholic parents that I slept in that guest house and she insisted that we always lie to them about the nature of our relationship.

We were just friends, she told them. Her dad immediately saw through me clear to the third rung of hell...he never once failed to graciously enquire about the well-being of my boy, smiling widely every time I made the same obligatory, emotionless retort.

=He's doing fine.

************************

=You own me.

She'd gasp and shutter in spasms, always with her riding hard and tall in the saddle, always doing it all for both of us. She'd get so inside of hers, which took forever to develop, so long that her trance-zone facial expressions when it finally happened made me laugh out loud sometimes.

It seemed sorta selfish of her in a funny way, all this drawn out intensity, the expense of so much comic energy and in the end, for what? The female's opposite rejoinder to the traditionally uncaring lunk's premature ejaculation? I guess I had it coming.

Ha-ha.

I met another grrl at work one weekday back in DFW, a vietnamese refugee with the lithe underdeveloped body of a preteen. She was really 26, I swear. She had one of those overly possessive redneck boyfriends up in Arkansas from whom she had sought escape by moving to the next state.

Soon enough, he started calling me at the office, regularly threatening to come down to Texas and exterminate me just as the prime of my perversion blossomed decadently, and just as soon as the judge restored his drivers license.

He did eventually showed up one day but I'd already quit and gone to work somewhere else. One of my ex-co-workers called me and replayed the scene in most colourful detail. He'd come up the elevator and started making a row as soon as he hit the receptionist's desk, loudly demanding to see "that Peter asshole and that little gook cunt".

Glory came out and pleaded with him to calm down and leave, that I wasn't there. He ransacked the office for awhile, threatening to cut off my balls with a butter knife when he found me. The police were summoned.

I probably need to give Glory a call, too, now that I think about it. I look back sometimes in wonder.

Lena, Glory.

And I was perfectly miserable, encrusted in a tomb of non-stop sexual delirium.

RIOTOUS!

Glory ended up marrying the whackjob BF and they now have one, maybe two kidz together. They live happily ever after in the suburbs with a house, two cars and a dog.

Lena kept wanting more of me. She believed that I was ecstatic as she was with our life. Maybe I somehow gave her that impression. She never noticed me doing all the career changing, all the priority shifting, the endless traveling back and forth, the constant pushing aside of my own parental obligations.

Flights into and out of Louis Armstrong International Airport slowly tapered off in year three, first to every other week, then every third week, then less than that.

Finally, the excuses.

=I have too much work. I have to take my son to gym lessons. My dick hurtz.

Then, I said g'bye to Uptown New Orleans forever.

I wrote a song about us. It had written itself in a weirdly, emotionally accurate minour chord progression. It sounded pretty good. I thot about making her a tape but that seemed way too fucked up.

So I just mailed her the lyrics, instead...

In the beginning
you came
every morning
you were the sun
rising up
without warning

In the end
I lost you
in a fog
In the end
me frothing
like a dog

In between
you were alive
beside me
unseen rope
confined me
you were alive
you were alive
beside me!

You crossed the rubicon
astride me!

And in between
I was alive
beside you
your poetry
survives me
I was alive
I was alive
inside you!

I crossed the rubicon
inside you!

She never wrote back. I called her once. She answered and spoke to me in a glum monotone. I didn't ask how she liked the song. I felt like she was acting, but haha! So was I.

Neither of us could ever be free.

Some lawyer who'd chased her around for years had recently presented her with a diamond ring.

I told her all about my relationship with Glory.

=Oh, Pete. Why can't you learn to value yourslef?

=I do. I do. I do.

West Side Story (film); A Bay State Re-Appearance:

mplo — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 21:08:55 GMT

This week, I will be doing a promised report on my recent screening of my alltime favorite film:

This past Monday night was a night I'd been looking forward to for quite awhile, since my all-time favorite film was playing at a movie theatre here in the Bay State. I had, in fact, emailed the people who worked at this particular movie theatre, the Strand Theatre out in a town called Clinton, MA, which is out in the northwestern central part of the state. Clinton, MA is a cute little town, but I certainly wouldn't want to live out there, since it's way too far out on the frontier for my liking, particularly in the winter. The film West Side Story comes to the Bay State at least twice a year, or so it seems. I'd be happy to see it come a little more often than that, but, hey...I guess those are the breaks sometimes. Anyway, here comes the crux of this Thursday's Open Thoughts Thread:
As usual, I waited in excitement and anticipation for yet another screening of my all-time favorite film, the great, golden oldie-but-keeper of a classic film, West Side Story. Since part of the stories I like to write about my viewings of the film West Side Story on a big, wide movie theatre screen are the stories of my adventures and either seeing it at a really wonderful indy movie theatre (one of the three independent movie theatres left in our area), going to another part of the Bay State, or even to a neighboring state for a screening of WSS, I always make sure to tell about my adventures there, too.

Sure, I've attended screenings of the film West Side Story in and around Boston, Cambridge and Brookline, and even farther out in the Bay State, like this past Monday, and even in neighboring states such as NY, CT, NH and RI, but this time, I ended up driving about an hour and a half out to the Strand Theatre, in Clinton, MA, which is in the northwestern central part of the Bay State. Leaving home at around 5:00 in the afternoon (later than I'd planned on leaving), I swung west onto the Mass Turnpike, only to hit a rather large, slow-crawling traffic jam. What a drag, I thought, this is all I need. I had heard on the radio as I was driving out that a couple of buses on the west-bound side of the turnpike had caught fire or something and, while the state had managed to clear the mess, the damage, the radio broadcaster said, was done. Never a great time of day to travel out of town anyway, an already-hellish situation was made considerably worse in this instance. The traffic was slowed to a real crawl and backed up from the New Balance (sneakers) building in Allston out to Newton Corner, left over from the earlier bus fiasco on the westbound side of the Pike. The slow 20-mph pace of the traffic at that point rather taxed my patience, but eventually it passed, and, after Newton Corner, although the traffic was still pretty heavy, things went more smoothly and I had no more trouble for the rest of the trip out there. Whew! I though I might be there until six or so! Fortunately, I made it in good time, only losing 20 minutes at the most, I think.

Since this is the time of year to really appreciate the lush greenery, and the Bay State at large is beautiful at this time of year, it was well worth it, for it was also a very pretty drive out there.

The Strand Theatre was a cute little old-fashioned-looking movie theatre, smaller than most, with a single screen, with the same kind of "retro" look of old-fashioned theatres, and they show Classic films every Monday night, all year around. Now, Clinton, MA is a cute, quaint little town, but I definitely would not want to live out there! It's way too far out on the frontier for my liking, especially in the wintertime! I'm not sure, but I think that the movie theatre may have even had a balcony, although I didn't see anybody sitting up on it. There was an old-fashioned-looking concession stand, and they served pizza, zucchini sticks, onion rings, bacon burgers and a whole bunch of other stuff. I obtained directions from google map, wrote them down, and embarked on my drive out there.

I parked where I could, walked into the theatre box office, obtained my ticket (only $5.50 for general admission for all), lined up at the concession stand for some zucchini sticks, onion rings, bottled water and a cookie, and then staked out my seat in the middle of the theatre. As the young girl at the box office had pointed out, there was a good bunch of people of all ages, and, while the theatre didn't sell out, there was a great crowd, nonetheless.

This particular print of West Side Story, although it was a DVD format, was pristine, and it looked like it may have been a Blu-Ray DVD. As usual, I felt like I was seeing it for the first time. It's an old film, West Side Story, but it always feels new to me every time I see it, for some reason. Despite the fact that not all the scenery showed, due to the fact that it wasn't as wide as a regular film screening, everybody in the theatre, including myself, had a wonderful time. The various facial expressions and personalities of the various characters in the film were far more noticeable, and there seemed to be more people in the background than before.

This is another thing about the film West Side Story for me: I manage to notice things about this great film that I didn't notice before. The various characters, including Richard Beymer, who I've always regarded as a rather weak, lacklustre Tony, seemed more three-dimensional and more vital, and the brilliant Bernstein musical score, the costumes and photography, the beautifully-choreographed dancing, and the well-done fighting and rumble scenes, as well as The Dance at the Gym, were terrifically done.

What a wonderful story WSS also has, and, to quote Bosley Crowther of the New York Times, when the film West Side Story was first released and won ten (yup, you all read right...ten!) academy awards including Best Picture for that year "It's a timeless masterpiece"! To me, West Side Story is the classic that never grows old! It's different than most other Classic films of that era or earlier, or even later, which, while quite likeable (there are a number of other classic films that I've seen more than once), seem to have a more childish, pettier quality to them which makes them more dated. Not so West Side Story, in which the story, although it's fiction, it's somewhat closert to reality as a neighbor of mine put it sometime ago.

Hey...I know that in real life, street gangs don't go dancing around and through the streets, and people don't necessarily and always fall in love at first sight. However, I like to watch a fiction movie like this for enjoyment.

One of the reasons that I was looking foward to the screening of West Side Story, as always, is such a wonderful, welcome alternative to much of what comes down today in the name of movies, which, nowadays, are often pretty bad. So, I bide my time and wait until really good movies come to the Brattle, the Coolidge, and the Somerville Theatres.

Anyway, a wonderful time was had by all, including me, and I might write a bit more about West Side Story, but who knows?

Illegal Immigrants Deserve a Fair Deal

Chip — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:57:48 GMT

(Originally posted at Liberating Porn)

Dear readers, many of you have probably read Max Brooks' novel World War Z. (Personally, I've read it a dozen times, mostly because I giggle gleefully at the thought of zombies munching their way through half of America.) Brooks wrote one particular line that stuck with me, even more so during our super retarded immigration debate: "Americans expect a fair deal."

Upon further consideration, I agree. Americans are a people who get riled up when Walmart won't provide a refund when the $200 gadget capable of deep-frying vegetables ends up being defective. We enthusiastically worship oil and willfully ignore the firm, hairy-knuckled grasp of Big Oil as it clenches its fist over our collective scrotum, but hey, when BP messed up, we expected them to foot the bill. Basically, when someone fucks us over we expect to be compensated.

And despite our country's brutish nature, we do sometimes play the role of gentle giant. Well okay, the gentle retarded giant; we had a baby bird named Iraq and broke its neck whilst petting it. After we nuked Japan into rubble, for better or worse, we hung around so that country could rise like a phoenix from the ashes. A terrifying, Pokemon-loving, sex robot-building phoenix who constantly jacks off to tentacle porn, but a phoenix nevertheless.

America also has a nasty habit of jovially subjugating various peoples within our borders. Or, in regards to Native Americans, peoples whose borders we decided weren't Christian enough. Yes,America's treatment of Indians, Africans, and Asians was sickening, and perhaps the retribution America provided was largely a slap in the face. However, our retarded gentle giant at least attempted some sort of retribution, whether it be casinos, Affirmative Action, or a check and an apology for internment. While we sane and humble folks can agree those aforementioned consolation prizes are a laughable pittance, they are, at least superficially, something in return for all the goofy slavery, internment, and, ya know, genocide 'n stuff.

Then we have our southern neighbors, with their awful dress habits, inconsistent hygiene, and proclivity for putting too many of their own citizens to death. Yes, I'm talking about Texas and Arizona. These two states have stoked irrational fear and hatred of the Central and South Americans who've hopped the border into the US. After Governor Jan Brewer signed the happily draconian immigrant law, vast chunks of our populace rose up and applauded. Opposing the underlying logic of the Arizona law is, for some, difficult. After all, those illegal immigrants are here illegally so they have to leave. How can ya argue with the logic?

Quite easily, actually. You see dear readers, the American government has been fingerbanging Central and South America ever since 1823's Monroe Doctrine, with which we pretty much told European imperialists to go fuck themselves and stay away from our hot Latina girlfriend. Since then, our government has treated Central and South America like a bastard state of the union, the less desirable one we keep in the basement. We only feed it one bucket of fishheads a week, we don't tell our neighbors about it, and, from time to time, we murder their democratically-elected leaders - who are usually left wing reformers - because they go against our economic interests.

In short, and this is by no means a comprehensive list, the American government has: Supported the brutal hereditary dictatorship of the Somoza family in Nicaragua for 40 fucking years then acted all surprised when the Sandanistas popped up; Texans say "Illegal immigrants from Mexico shouldn't be here!", all the while forgetting that America stole Texas from Mexico then, in a truly cruel act, filled it with Texans; we paid Panama dictator-slash-drug lord Manuel Noriega to keep communists out of his country, mostly by murdering as many Panamanians as possible (because hell, a few must have been commies, right?); Ike Eisenhower famously toppled the left wing reformist government of Guatemala and thus brought on instability, poverty, and a ridiculous nationwide murder rate all because American businessmen were super protective of their banana profits (literally).

Now dear readers, the aforementioned cases of America's Fingerbang of Imperialistic Doom are often the direct causes for folks from these fingerbanged nations jumping over our borders. Simply, they are poor in large part due to American involvement. Put yourself in their shoes: If the CIA showed up to your town, killed your mayor, shot your puppy, and stole your fucking bananas, wouldn't you expect an apology and, God willing, some retribution?

Yes, you would. Because we're Americans. For all our faults, we are a people who expect something resembling a fair deal.

Amnesty, bitches!

What Part of "Fuck Me With A Phone Pole" Don't You Understand?

Miep — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 08:01:48 GMT

I swear, Speechters, these fools are so dim about having a clue about a good verbal slam.
Let's start with "Bite Me." I lurves me some "Bite Me." This is an excellent slam; it pretty much is tantamount to saying "I want you to hit me. Now."

Except in a really condescending manner.

It sums a lot, to tell someone: "Bite Me."

Description:

You are a weak, whining, sniveling fool yapping at my heels, who does not even have the guts to give me a nip.

See?

Now, let's get on to "Cunt." I've been wanting to write about "cunt" for some time now.

"Cunt" used to be just some old word for vagina, a few hundred years ago in I think the UK. I think this is old English.

Okay. so why is this word such a problem?

I call a guy a dick, in most places on the net, I'll get slapped a bit, maybe.

Somebody calls a woman a cunt, in many places, it's OMFG A Bad Word!! Ban them! Ban them!

I mean, seriously, Speechters; that's ridiculous. You guys here, you got dicks, right?

No argument there? No, I thought not.

I myself, have a cunt. Right here between my (decently muscular) thighs.

All covered with my (brunette) hair.

Inside my cunt, I have a vagina. On the exterior, I have a clitoris.

I'm a Homo sapiens outlier, for reasons outside the scope of this immediate discussion. Thus, I don't have a boyfriend (I'm pretty much straight, though really brilliant female H. sapien women occasionally blow my socks off).

I'm 53.

Well, I will be in October.

Anyway, point being is that I masturbate. I've been masturbating for decades, since I haven't managed to work out getting hooked up with another person.

And, I've read that if a woman who has stopped menstruating (which I did about 18 months ago) masturbates, she'll be doing a good job as to keeping her vagina in shape, helping keep the muscles toned, etc.

Keep the va-jay-jay from getting shorter, which is what can happen.

Guys, OTOH, Speechters...Guys Want To Have Sex Up Until About The Day They Die.

I read that somewhere.

Well, anyway...y'all get my drift, Speechters?

Don't ever give up. And you Speechter Grrls (and if you're not here, I know you will be eventually); now, don't you let any of the guys try to pimp you out to anybody. You rock even if you aren't hooked up. Sure, an invite is good, but keep your pride. You are NOT a whore, unless you decide that you need to engage in that occupation for personal reasons that nobody has any right to hassle you about.

Miep

Dick Cheney Is A Cyborg Zombie

Jack's Smirking Revenge — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 05:05:54 GMT

Although others mentioned it first, I have been researching this development for days as it was brought to my attention the day it was found out.

I got it in an email.

I feel it is my duty, as a citizen, to make the nation aware of this.

"Inception" in Afghanistan

Jacob Freeze — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:46:29 GMT

Among the two or three ideas which the recent American movie "Inception" ponderously expounds is what you might call the increasing speed of consciousness of dreams within dreams.

While only a minute passes in reality, the dreamer experiences hours in a dream, and maybe months in the dream within that dream, and so on until the most embedded dream extends forever, in one heartbeat of the sleeping body which hosts the dreams.

This is exactly the opposite order of so many nightmares within nightmares which compose the American occupation of Afghanistan.

A village which somehow endured for a thousand years is destroyed in one second by American bombers, and at the next level of reality in some miserable refugee camp, opium-addicted mothers pass their addiction along to their children, and at the next level of reality those same children appear in an even more miserable orphanage, "with no doors or windows, and no food," and at the next level...

Then, just as winter was coming, the government closed the orphanage. By the spring, only 160 kids returned. "They started working as laborers and slaves and couldn't come back," said Farid. "This winter the government wanted to send them back to the community, that means nowhere, then they don't have food or somewhere to stay." One boy was discovered in the market. He was covered in scabies, sleeping under the stalls, raped repeatedly.

And while those children descended month after month and year after year through so many levels of the infinite misery of ordinary reality in Afghanistan...

Meanwhile the American public snoozed peacefully in its idiotic delusions about the Global War on Terror, and President Obama has recently re-authorized the abject Patriot Act, as if nothing had happened and as if no time had passed since September 11, 2001.

Thoughts on Corners

Miep — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 07:21:28 GMT

I do like living with other people. I think there has to be some space, though. I think I'd like a village where there was a central group of buildings for community things (like cooking, working with processing agricultural products, hosting guests, parties, art venues, hospitals)

(cross-posted from Daily Kos, where they still haven't banned me)
and then we all had our own little places that would start radiating maybe a quarter mile out from the center. That would be the first outside circle. There would be a green belt outside of that, that would involve agriculture, in a much more sophisticated way than we're used to - it would look like wilderness

That would be cool, because you'd have space, but you'd also have your neighbors at your level of the circle, and others further out, who would help to guard what would keep reframing itself as the perimeter. - and some people could have their living places further out. Total population? 10K? Too much?

Yeah, possibly. 5K. But the model is flexible.

Everybody would have some freedom to move further towards the center, or further out. This kind of setup would be especially helpful for the kids, because the center would be the safest place, where there were guaranteed to be wise, kind people in charge.

And the kids would always know that they could go there, if things got rough. And they would always know where that was, because that would be part of the deal, that everybody knows that's the safe place, where you go if you get in trouble.

The people out on the outlying fringes of the circle, would include those who could not handle society too much, but who were exceptionally good at paying attention to the physical world. They would include some of the hypersensitive, including hermits.

They, too, would have a job. They would be guardians. And they would be mentors, occasionally, as appropriate, for the kids who showed signs of needing to be reclusive, sensitive, oddballs.

The guys might well tend to migrate especially toward the outer circles, but it wouldn't be a given. Everybody of any gender would have a choice as to where to seek their places, and also to change, adapt, evolve over time.

And eventually, the circle would get so big that people would spin off into starting other circles. And then they would run into people from other circles.

But there would be language, and people riding back and forth, on horses or donkeys, or camels or llamas. And there would be things traded between the circles, and there would be marriages.

So far, so good. But what happened when everybody ran out of room?

Oh, horrors.

It stopped being about circles, then. People started running out of space, so they started thinking about squares, because you can put more squares into the same space, than you can circles.

Unfortunately, squares require corners, and corners are always the furthest away, and besides; when you're in the corner, you're cornered.

Corners imply not having enough room. Otherwise, we'd still be running stuff with circles.

Nobody wants to be in the corner.

That's where you get trapped.

You might ask, where are the jails in this model?

I'll answer that. What I'm trying to dream up here is a model of civilization that doesn't require jails, where jails are anathema.

Where people who are getting into trouble know they have someplace to go for help - to the center. Where the guaranteed grownups are. The wise kind ones. The old ones. The young and extraordinarily talented ones.

The ones who know that rules are for fools.

The ones you know will be there for you, if you get into trouble. Because that's how it works; everybody knows that! That's how we roll here.

Sure, we all have problems, and sure, we like to diss the people in the center.

But we still know in our hearts they are there for us, even in all of our corners.

All we have to do is come out and come in.

That's my vision.

Miep Rowan O'Brien

July 28, 2010

All of my writing should be considered Creative Commons; i.e.; you're free to copy, post, anything - just please give me credit. Thanks!