North Korea launches some scuds and a dud and the president wants some Red Lines. Here it is plain and simple. If China doesn’t do some serious arm twisting on Kim Jong Il, and we’re talking both arms, conventional and nuclear, we, in the US, will stop shopping at Macy’s and Walmart.

I don’t know about you, but I can do without underwear for at least six days maybe seven. After that I would have to reconsider. United States Foreign Policy seems to be premised on Diplomacy in their approach with the DPRK. Well, that’s nice, since Iraq and Afghanistan have both proven that the world’s last surviving superpower is pretty much impotent when it comes to assymetrical warfare. We don’t have the stomach for KILLING INNOCENT CIVILIANS not to mention putting a lot of our young women and men, our paid shooters, into coffins for the trip back home, which that fellow, the former CIA guy Mike Anonymous tells us is absolutely necessary if we want to end a war of insurgency. It takes a lot of killing and a lot of death to end these kinds of wars, and even helicopter rescues from western hotels in foreign capitals, which we seem to have forgotten. We thought shock and awe would end it right there,. The Iraqi People would rush into the streets to hug our humvees. We now know that fighting from the green zone is the wrong approach, it has to be much more violent a lot uglier.

There seems to be one red line after another here in the US when it comes to the DPRK, the first Bush tried it, the second Bush tried it and Clinton did it between the two Bushes. Red Line seems to be wrong color.

The Chinese Capitalist Republic discovered that having one third of the world’s people, living in a Socialist Paradise didn’t work very well, and that greed is good. They became our factory and we became their market. We could easily convince the Chinese that they hold the key here, either bring Kim around to reality or we’re giving up underwear!

How long can China crank out cheap goods if Walmart is out of business? One week? Two?

In the meantime, we seem to be blending the RED STAR and the dollar sign. I see it everywhere, a raised five pointed star attached on the side of the barn, as a fleeting image on news programs, and of course on the flag of the DPRK.
We may be the world’s last superpower, but we’re not standing. We’re hunched over, carrying sacks of green to the fast boat to China. The Chinese economy is booming and using their new found capitalist wealth to feed the North Koreans. It is not just trains of food their sending it’s the whole train. It seems that Kim has a way of making his own rules, keeping the train that delivers the aid. A one way trip into the never never land above the DMZ a metaphor for eternal childhood, immortality and escapism.

The Chinese don’t seem to mind, they have so much of our money they can afford it!

In the MEAN time, we’re not just impotent, we’re stupid. We think that making the RED into GREEN will make China a Democracy! We think that by keeping thirty thousand troops in South Korea we will keep them out of harm’s way, and that using a bunker buster just a few kilometers from the Chinese border will defuse the threat.

Welcome to the Bush League of Nations, where the Black Queen is talking backwards and the hookah smokin’ Rumwart just ate some kinda mushroom and I seriously hope it doesn’t turn into a cloud over the horizon.

Whooowaaaa

Bob

When I sit in front of the Cyclops, I find myself in rejection mode, a not so slow series of things I can’t seem to bring myself to watch for more than thirty seconds at a time. I’ve noticed that the images are sequenced on most channels at a rate that is quicker since the introduction of the remote simply because people channel surf more quickly now than in the days when you had to stand up and walk over to the beast to touch his knob.

The graphic images are much more violent today. When program central wants to capture your attention they do it with rapid, violent and explosive elements that mesmerize in the way fireworks mesmerize on the fourth, or shock and awe does in Baghdad. How can you not watch? They defy you not to watch, as arms and legs are strewn about the scene, people are bleeding from their eyes, and women are screaming obscene horror noises into your face. How can you not watch my pain you absolutely uncaring, cold hearted beast they shout in scream languages that are universally understood on nerve fibers in your spine. I reject your pain, click, and yours, click, and the loss of your son who strapped on fifty pounds of hate and venom and blew himself up at the bus station as a last desperate act to get my attention so I could somehow make a difference in how his politics worked.

The dialogue that used to support the image is also sequenced at an alarming rate, very few in depth, reasoned, logical arguments, just talking heads screaming past each other in blue and red tones of intolerance. “You don’t get it”, click, you’re absolutely right because you’re not giving it to me in a reasonable manner, click, Maury, click, Chris, click, O’really, click.

The cycloptic screen is aimed at emotion which undermines the rational. It is meant to shock, frighten, terrify in a rapid mis-en-scene of misanthropy, to create dissonance in the viewer in anticipation that a sponsoring pharmaceutical can ease the tension created by the emotion aroused.

The product is too often an ingestable pharmacopic agent that you should ask your doctor to prescribe to “solve” the tension that cyclops promotes by bringing you “reality” itself. The reality depicted is the human condition, a series of disgusting things to eat, or debilitating human relationships that are “resolved” for all the wrong reasons. Greed, power, better looks. The fat ugly man with the five o’clock shadow being transformed into the lovely princess by a makeover team of crack surgeons to be courted and wed by an obsequious social climber who is doing it for the millions and the book deal and the trip to the exotic island where the happy natives in loin cloths will elevate the loving couple to the status of idols for fifteen minutes, but first, a word from Zantac, or Zoloft, or Anusoil.

I reject you, click, and you, click, never even bothering with the volume, the dialogue is so superficial, it is superfluous.

The palliative is a new product, not sold in stores, that is the latest good that will solve all the bad if only you purchase it now, while the operators are waiting for your call, the number is flashing at the bottom of the screen, you absolute idiot, reach for the phone. What do we have to do, haul you in and implant the chip! Why can’t you see the number, it’s automatically flashing on the display of your new integrated phone/camera/thought pad, it’s in your palm, just press O.K., Send or something......click, click, click.........

The entire cult of the idol personalities is what drives the system, people that exude ENVY, that we can ADORE, this week or this month, before the big break up, the nose job, the breast implant, the buttocks reduction. The idols in order to maintain the presence of mind it takes to sell, sell, sell, must go through a progression of makeovers. They start as ordinary folks with a bad voice and end up canaries, morph into actors, and if they achieve suitable notoriety then morph into product representatives so they can sell phones in their cleavage. Too cute by half. You can sell a lot of stuff with the prominence of that display. You don’t even need a face, your torso will do just fine Victoria! The big question is can I drive a Mack truck between your thighs. The eye seeks the breast first, the face second and then...........the product.

Even the olympic channel taps into the human desire for skin by bringing us skin tight beach volley ball as the ultimate win/lose reality. Not men’s volleyball, women’s volleyball. What a ball! Play ball, buy this product! What ever happened to dressage?

Empire and it’s dissolution, deconstruction are well documented in the written record going back millennia, available to those so inclined to read, who can still read, notwithstanding the fact that we fail to notice the horror echoed in the well of silence. The record points to a series of political solutions funded by the well connected for their narrow purposes, achieving zenith and falling into rapid decline. Three hundred years is better than average, sometimes decades only will suffice. We, here, are well past the point where political gravity works it’s magic. The signs of decay are evident in the electronic circus, where the disenfranchised are fed to the lions, brought to you by the pharmacopeia of products that you cannot purchase in Canada or Mexico for less. Not because they are different, but because the system created by cyclops is meant to circulate money from the bottom to the top to support the political solution.

If the products fail to support the political solution, then the solution is in crisis, will dis-solve before our very eyes, as we click, click, click...on the automatic clicker which is rigged in my living room on the hand of the inflatable look alike doll, mounted on the sofa, meant to fool the prying eye of cyclops. Sorry, I checked out, I won’t be here when you resume your regular programming on the next three hundred channels you're creating to prop up your politique! Try the guy next door, click.......

I have been traveling to St. John for over twenty five years. Each time I have come here, I have been on a boat, moving about the anchorages and sailing slowly from neighboring islands, taking photographs and sketching my surroundings in a small spiral notebook which has been my daily journal of thoughts and impressions on island life. I like to capture the busy market squares, the ferry docks, the local outdoor parks where the local culture rubs up against the hordes of tourists. These represent for me interesting points of intersection between cultures, the belongers and the transient population of visitors that come looking for the unusual, the extraordinary with which to compare and contrast their everyday realities.

The island scene of the coconut man with his large machete hacking the tops off coconuts and offering them for sale from a shopping cart has always been an interesting point of reference. My kids stood in awe at that cart, in part because a scary looking belonger was wielding a very large knife with skill and elan, but also because it was so far removed from anything they had ever experienced in their short lives. I stood a safe distance apart, trying to capture the disbelief on their faces and the faces of the other strangers that were just as intrigued and curious, coming upon this island scene for the first time. My kids purchased a fresh coconut drink and stood in amazement at the large hand holding the coconut, not because it was black or large but because it still had four fingers and a thumb.

I came back to this spot on this day, with my sketch pad and camera and saw for the first time a tall chain link fence cordoning off the ferry dock and a sign prominently displayed from the Department of Homeland Security asking all good citizens of St. John to help protect the homeland by identifying unknown persons photographing or sketching the main square where the ferry dock is located.

Ohmygod! That was me! I was the unknown and unknowable stranger doing those things. I quickly looked about to see who was observing and being observed and sure enough a security guard with a dark blue uniform and black leather boots was looking straight at me. He was watching me read that sign and photographing it! I quickly snuck the camera and sketch pad into my pack and started walking away. The security guard started toward me and I could see that we would intersect at the edge of the park by the freedom statue, the one commemorating the blowing of the conch with the right hand while the left hand held a cane knife high overhead.

There was no hiding behind my sunglasses with the purple lenses from this guy, he had me firmly in his sights. From his vantage point at the dock he could clearly see that I had held up a phone/camera and pointed it at the sign attached to the fence. When he confronted me with a suspicious tone and asked me what I was doing, I quickly explained that I was having trouble seeing if my cell phone was getting a reception here. “I’m farsighted”, I explained nervously, “I was trying to see if my phone had any incoming messages. I was holding it at arms length because I forgot my glasses.” I produced the phone and flipped it open and held it out so he could see the display. “Can you see how many bars I have?” I asked. “We have plenty of bars,” he responded, “move along”. I laughed nervously as I walked away, I could feel his eyes on my back making a mental note of my height, approximate weight and the color of my hair. “Welcome to my Island mon”, I whispered under my breath as I stopped to look at the word freedom etched in the granite pedestal.

That evening I stopped in at Fred’s for a jam with Inner Vision. I was feeling Jah, blowing out my flip flops for several hours. The same security guard was walking up and down the lane and each time he passed by Fred’s I couldn’t help thinking that he was looking straight at me. When I finally left he was at the entrance of the bar watching the patrons come and go. He wasn’t a happy looking person, he was a strange man watching strangers, a whole island full of strangers who come in droves every day carrying bags and taking photographs of other strangers carrying bags and making phone calls on cell phones. Thousands and thousands of strange faces hiding their eyes behind colored lenses, carrying cameras that look like phones, in fact are phones/cameras, indiscriminately taking photos and making cell calls in public places. His job was to protect those strangers from the other strangers who were photographing them. What an impossible job, I thought, keeping a metal image of a thousand strange faces that change every day. A thousand strangers that are all suspects. What special training does it take to do a job like that? How does the boss know if you’re doing a good job? Can you do a good job or is it mostly about intimidating strangers who come here to drink rum and jump up? All strangers are suspects, and even though I have been coming here all this time, this guy doesn’t know me from a hole in that chain link fence. We all look the same to him.

That night I went back to the boat and went to sleep under the full moon, rocking gently and listening to the water breaking against the rocks two or three hundred yards away. It was a pleasant reassuring, soothing sound mixed with halyard noises and cups and saucers moving in rhythm with the sea. I was asleep in no time and vividly began dreaming BIZZARO dream #37.

I awoke in a cold sweat. Someone had been on the boat when I was at Fred’s. I could sense it. I got up from the aft cabin bunk, climbed into the cockpit and reached for the flashlight that I keep in the hanging basket next to the hatchway in the main salon. As I shined the light into the cabin I could see all my cleaning supplies that I keep under the sink in the galley on the cabin floor. “I knew it”, I yelled at my wife, “someone’s been on the boat!”

I jumped into the dinghy and raced ashore to confront the burglar. I found him walking along a dimly lit road with my ditty bag full of boat papers under his arm. I caught up to him and when he turned to face me, I recognized him, it was the security guard. When I asked him what he was doing, he told me that he was going through my boat papers to identify my insurance company and that he was turning me in as an unsafe boater for anchoring too close to shore.

I know what this is about I rationalized to myself. That morning I had been in Red Hook to drop off some garbage and buy some groceries. I attempted to anchor in an area of moored vessels close to American Yacht Harbor and several people started yelling at me. I was rather surprised by the reception since I had anchored there in the past. Someone came over in a dinghy to explain that all these moorings were private. “I know”, I said in my own defense, “that’s why I’m putting down my hook”. “You don’t understand”, the dinghy meister went on, “all these moorings are tied together with chain. You’re sure to foul someone if you put your hook down here.” There was of course no way of knowing that, the area was identified on the chart as an anchorage.

That must have sparked a nightmare, I thought to myself, as I shook off the shiver that traveled through my spine when I confronted the security guard.

Just then I looked out the porthole and saw a van parked next to my boat. I jumped out of bed and yelled to my wife to get me the gun. We don’t keep a gun on the boat, but I wanted to scare off anyone that might have boarded the boat. She handed me the flashlight and I pushed open the cabin door to find a dark stranger siting in my cockpit. I moaned a long, deep, bellowing grunt from deep below my diaphragm and felt a burning pain emerging just above my kidney. My wife’s elbow was jabbing my side, “wake up” she whispered “you’re have a nightmare”

“Welcome to paradise”, I whispered back, “just don’t make any sketches.”

There is no freedom behind the chain link fence, there are only prisoners, safe prisoners, protected by uniformed guards that look upon neighbors as if they were strangers, such is Liberty sacrificed at the altar of safety, in all, not much better than self imposed slavery. Unlock your mind, fear is your enemy.

It has always amazed me that in this country of freedom to speak one’s mind the first casualty in times of crisis is dissent. Whether the impetus comes from the flag waving citizen who hopes to thus define patriotism or from self imposed quiescence under the call to unity, the opposition to official American policy is shunted.

When the bombs begin to fall on Red Cross food distribution facilities, or U.N. workers become collateral damage, a stirring begins and a voice or two questions if there might not be a better method of conflict resolution. As you should know, aerial bombing of cities first began during the Spanish Civil

War, 1938 or 1939, and was considered at the time to be the most barbaric action ever undertaken by “State” for the solution of political conflict. It seems rather routine nowadays, just another indication of how much like the enemy we really are. Violence begets violence, even when it doesn’t prove effective in solving the big problems we all face.

I consider dissent to be the highest responsibility of citizenship, much more important than mere voting, an opportunity to inform debate, clarify issues and proffer alternative solutions. It is not that dissent is consent denied to those that govern, it is quite the contrary the ordinary citizen’s primary avenue for engaging those that make policy, to reconnect with them and their ideas and ideals. Waving a flag may be the most visible way of saying yes to policy, burning it the most visible way of saying no. Neither of those actions goes very deeply into the gist of political issues and the degree of correctness of policy. Only words can do that, the tool that Horace Greeley considered a fundamental tool of citizenship. We can see from local events that one must summon courage to speak or write an opinion contrary to the majority opinion in a period of crisis. We can see the toll it takes on personal freedom, the cornerstone of American Democracy.

I feel that the conflict we are engaged in has spun wildly out of control. Carpet bombing is indiscriminate. Stop the carnage. Kill not in my name. Place me on the side of law, and justice delivered through Courts, with the accused confronted with evidence, a transparent process of hearing and review.

Take my name out of the column that says I approve of the current policy. Count my vote now, chad or no chad, as being fundamentally opposed to a violent response to this crisis.

The ideals that we consider so fundamental to America are not served by this policy. These actions are seen around the world as Imperial actions, as if The Empire is striking back. We cannot undo evil in this way. We must avoid stimulating additional acts of violence through our military reprisals for violent acts. We are not absolutely certain where the original acts originated, it is fairly obvious that the people of Afghanistan are not mailing us Anthrax.

The United Nations and the World Court are the two bodies that we would turn to if other nations were subjected to crimes such as the ones being committed here today. We have a special responsibility to strengthen those institutions now. That policy would not only serve us now, it would serve the world for the future.

This is not an ism. It is shoring up a World system for delivering Justice across borders. We are not living in the wild west. There is no sports metaphor for winning this one. This is about process, with rules, procedure, and obligation. These are the ideals we ascribe to in America. We must act out those ideals now and be a beacon in this our time of crisis.

In this way we can do the important work of making the World a better World.

Bob Rivard

born 9/26/1905 Pawtucket Rhode Island

died 10/29/51 Lowell, Ma. He was a young

man and I was just a 7 year old. My

mother, Emelia Baron, born July 25, 1908

in Lowell, Massachusetts, was widowed

with five children. (Married 5/1/1937,

Lowell, Ma.)

The first, Monique (Rivard) Reed lives

in Lexington, Mass, born on November 7,

1938. Marie Agnes (Rivard) Baker, the

second, born January 31, 1940, changed

her name to Kathy and became a Mormon

(the black sheep obviously) lives in

Logan, Utah. The third, Emile Albert

Joseph Rivard, born August 3, 1941,

lives in Tacoma, Washington. The fourth,

Madeleine (Rivard) Franklin, born May 3,

1943, lives in Atlantic Highlands, New

Jersey. I’m the fifth, Robert Leon

Rivard, born 10/27/44, and I live in

Amherst, Massachusetts, but I’m moving

straight to hell as soon as I’m done

here.

My paternal grandfather was Damase

Joseph Hormisdas Rivard. Born in Natick,

Rhode Island, July 31,1874. He died on

Feb 19, 1945. He was married (1/7/1901)

to Marie Louise Milotte, who was born in

Fall River, Massachusetts on Sept 4,

1877 and died on Sept 27, 1955. (She had

a small mustache but I pretended not to

notice.) They lived in Pawtucket, Rhode

Island and had thirteen

children.(obviously Damase wasn’t put

off by the facial hair either)

Irene, Alfred, Joseph, Albert (my

dad),Elizabeth (Betty is the last

survivor), Romeo, Lea, Gertrude, Henri,

Cecile, Eugene, Bertha, Antoine(Pete).

They mostly stayed in Rhode Island

around Pawtucket and Warwick. I had

thirty three cousins, so many I

couldn’t keep track, my sisters could

tell me (you) their names and dates of

birth. They are mostly all still alive,

and spread all over the East Coast.

Marie Louise Milotte was the

daughter of Napoleon Milotte (an

undertaker) and Philomene Bachand.

My great grandfather was Isaac Rivard

(plasterer) born 1848, North Stukeley,

P.Q. Canada, died 12/11/1923

He married Odile Dubois Quentin on

5/23/1870 in St. Jean

Odile was born 1850 and died 2/6/1912.

Her parents were Damase Dubois and

Cezairie Chartier.

They moved to 49 Hedly Ave., Central

Falls, Rhode Island, and later to

Natick, R.I.

My great-great-grandfather was Leandre

Rivard dit Dufresne born 1802. He

married DesAnges Mont-Pas born 1802.

They were married 10/16/1827 in

Yamaska. Marie DesAnges Montpas was

daughter of Jean-Louis Maupas dit St. Hilaire, and his second wife Victoire Laliberte (Rose-Victoire Roireau dit Laliberte,from Montreal.

My great-great-great grandfather was

Joseph Rivard dit Dufresne born Aug 7,

1766 died Apr 14, 1826. He married

Euphrosine Heroux on 2/11/1793 at

Yamachiche. Euphrosine was daughter of

Joseph Heroux and Marie Josephte

Sylvestre

My great-great-great-great grandfather

was Augustin Amable Rivard born

3/11/1743 died 5/7/1798. He married two

women the first in 1765 named Francoise

Gautier the second on 6/30/1779 named

Genevieve Gregoire at Ste Anne

d’Yamachiche. He was 1st

Deputy of St. Maurice from 1792 to 1796

My

great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was another Joseph Rivard,

born 1704

died 1/25/1793. He married Marie Toutant

born 5/7/1702 died 10/28/1778.

They were married at Yamachiche on

11/10/1732

Marie Toutant was daughter of Nicholas

Toutant and Marie Anne Raoul from St.

Aubin, Tourouvre, France.

My great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather was Julien Rivard

de La Glanderie born Dec 9, 1657 died

Dec 10, 1708. He married Elizabeth

Thunay dit Dufresne (a fifteen year old)

born 1667

They were married 2/3/1682 at Batiscan

Julien’s father was Nicolas the

adventuresome Sieur de Lavigne, who

married an 18 year old widow, Catherine

Isabelle St Per, after her first husband was killed by the Iroquois.

He came from France, from Merchants, Church Builders and was Captain of the Guard.

The armorplate comes with the territory.

Ich bin laden mit eine burde.

So much has changed since 911, for me it was an Horizon Event. It changed the way I look at the world. It used to be that I could wander the byways and highways without thinking too much about who was watching, without looking over my shoulder to take a bearing on who was being observed and who was observing. I lived in a bubble, surrounded by private thoughts, oblivious to what others around me were doing. No more. I’m paying attention to my rear view mirror now, to the innocent looking stranger with a five o’clock shadow at the checkout, to the secret policeman across the airplane aisle. I’m writing for the Carnivore now, the sniffers who read e-mail.

When you look at the world through a viel, your perception is limited. When you write to the carnivore, your words may take on special meaning.

Could I infuse my words with terror without knowing? Could this be da bomb? It’s hard to know which interpretation will prevail. Street talk can be confusing to the uninitiated. That’s the whole point of sub-culture, to develop a patois that is unique to the group. When the sniffer samples your mail, will they get your gist? Will they confuse an innocent statement for an elaborate trigger for an upper story job? Can you belong to sub-culture or must we all be dominant-culture types? Can you write jet fuel in your personal mail without the feds putting your name on the list? Can you send an e-mail without becoming a terrorist suspect? Are we all suspects?

In a free society, speech is protected. In this free society writing is not. It is subjected to an analysis which is a deeply held secret. When you write an e-mail that triggers the carnivore, your name and e-mail address shows up on a list. I have to assume that my name is on that list, and that everything I write is being read by an extremely paranoid personality that is nowhere in my address book. I too could be paranoid. Or they could be watching. If I assume they are not watching then I have to hope that I don’t inadvertently violate an obscure provision of a federal code that even lawyers have difficulty understanding. If I assume they are watching, which I do, then of necessity I must send a copy of everything I write to my newspaper editor.

You see my dear, anything I send to my editor takes on the protection that is only guaranteed by the press. So honey, in this, The First American Republic, I’m sharing my personal thoughts, I’m telling you how very much I love you, and I’m sending a copy to the newspaper. Because the last thing I want for you or for me, is to have the feds crash through my door and confiscate my hard drive.

Did we as a nation succumb to terrorism? You bet we did.

I'm doing this to preserve my sanity or perhaps in the hope of gaining a modicum of sanity......I ended the first week in February by thrashing my hard drive and everything on it. I decided to start in on my New Years resolution, ( six months late ) with a new identity...YOURS!

Just disregard the bills, that's what I usually do with the bills I get from whoever it was that stole my previous identity.

What is the world coming to? Pretty soon we'll all be watching Soap Operas as our goods flow effortlessly from robot controlled factories through UPS and Fedex right to our doors.

If we all purchase more goods will all the bad go away?

Bob

I was reading Sartre’s essays last January under the meager light of 12 volt electrics and failing daylight. The fact that I mixed in some Mt. Gay and tonic made the task even more daunting. I tried propping myself on an elbow and lay there horizontal under the sway of the hook. The pillow inching closer by the instant. I read and reread a sentence or two and stopped to ponder.

Contemplating life’s mysteries while suspended in a meditative trance.

Life floats on a bed of nothing. The creative dynamic force that drives the universe suspends all on nothing. The various branches of living organisms march down different pathways of light emanating from the luminous being at the center of darkness which is the vast vestibule of nothing. Some proceed on a course that allows their style of being to thrive for eons consuming their way on a steady diet of things born of no thing, some die off being the fodder that promotes another style of being. Not necessarily superior/inferior, decidedly consumer/consumed.

It’s difficult to image being from no thing. How could that be. Is god a thing or a no thing?

Lao Tsu talked of “all that there is and all that is not there. Sartre talked of being and nothingness. “What being will be must of necessity arise on the basis of what it is not.”

“Being is that and outside of that, nothing.”

I bought a wonderful print recently of “Buddah Falls” a mirage created from a photo of a waterfall that was constructed of two mirror images split down the middle. It’s difficult to convey the mystery that is contained in the scene. I looked at it in awe thinking that some high religious culture created the scene out of natural rock and used it as some spiritual ritual, a coming of age ritual or enlightenment ceremony. A truly monumental endeavor to make the waterfall as natural looking as possible with visions of the Buddah emerging from the mist and splashback from the water’s interaction with stone.

I was devastated to discover that it had been just a waterfall in real life that was doctored to make it perfectly symmetrical. The mystery returned when I suspended my disbelief and saw it for what it truly was. The Buddah emerging from no thing.

God is the boundary layer between darkness and the nothingness that resides there and everything that we perceive, intuit, feel and imagine. God is a kind of filter between what is not and the immense potential of what can be. The big plan, if there is a big plan, is for life to twist, turn, reconfigure, die off and be reborn in myriad colorful and imaginative configurations. A kaleidoscope of chemical compounds that twist into double helixes, detach and re-configure in huge complexities using only guanine, cytosine, adenine and thymine as code pairs to build DNA chains that contain all the potential to be. Outside of that there is no thing. Potential un-achieved, languishing in darkness.

All of the cells in the human body can be operating as a well oiled machine one moment and achieving potential, imagining the wherefrom, when poof, the fire in the belly goes out, the sun dries the remaining lifeless body into water vapor, dust and ashes. The life goes from now here to no where.

The light shines on, perceived by the body in motion, the godhead, the source of being, disparate, separate, making, coagulating, un-making, de constructing.

For what purpose but to be here now, and not to be here then, in the same style.

God is a body stylist, assuming the form of a dinosaur, dying off to resurrect as a flying insect that morphs into a wormlike grub, living under ground for 12 years like the Cicada only to emerge and devour the wheat fields that would otherwise have supported the human specie. For what reason but to keep the wheel of life spinning new and interesting things from air, water, sunlight and no thing. Pure energy, before movement in molecules can point to it.

If energy is discernible movement on a molecular scale, God is the most hyperactive individual that has ever and will ever exist. Made of all the molecules in the observable Universe (if you can’t see them, do they make noise?) coming together and moving apart at the speed of light. A huge constant collision, the impact of which can be detrimental to your consciousness.

It’s all there in the waterfall, that is pictured in the works of Escher, constantly flowing, yet always there still.

I’m the little guy on the second balcony, looking around. Or then again maybe I was just a figment of my imagination.

Bob

The 2nd American Republic will be conceived at a keyboard and will elucidate an ideal that will propagate at network speed. It will be such a compelling truth that the statement of it alone will rock the foundation of the 1st American Republic.

I further believe that the foundation, the very first principle on which self-government exists shall be re-established and affirmed, to wit, all legitimate government exists by the willing consent of the governed.

The founding principle of any legitimate government is based on the ability to guarantee to the people inalienable rights and freedoms, and the free and unfettered exchange of ideas and ideals and to live secure lives free of intimidation and fear. The first duty of all government is to secure for the people an opportunity to seek truth.

The fundamental premise for establishing a 2nd American Republic is that a people, with a wink, a blink, and a nod can demonstrate to each other in subtle and private ways the failure of their most venerable civic institution and within days, if not hours, could, without violence, disassemble the walls that bind them, one stone after another. Just as certainly as the Great Wall of China was constructed, one stone after another, the people will reassemble the foundation of governance to support the edifice of self-government that better serves their need.

The percentage of the American population that has become the local, county, state and federal bureaucracy of administering law, law that the people in their wisdom have instituted, has in itself become a burden of sufficient size that all attempts at controlling the cost and growth of government has thwarted reform from within and without, and that government has become the fundamental problem that stands between the people and their pursuit of truth and happiness.

The vulnerability of this, OUR, established government, is nowhere more evident than in their financial underpinning. Government derives revenue from consumption taxes and when the people have no employment their consumption declines. The Government also derives revenue from gambling, and gaming and when the people in their wisdom decide to alter or re-invent their governing institutions, a very real avenue will be to willfully limit those voluntary gaming activities curtailing a revenue source that will severely impact government’s ability to meet fiscal obligations. As we can see from situations abroad, the loss of confidence in government is rapid and irreversible when the fiscal underpinning of government is in question.

If you consider your Government to be the best possible iteration of the principles established by freedom loving individuals, then support your government with daily donations at the lottery kiosk. If you think a new system of government has a better chance of providing a more secure future for you and those you love, then stop gratuitous consumption and walk past the lottery machine.

When the people withhold their consent, the government will free fall, collapsing from political gravity and fiscal bankruptcy, and no amount of State Violence can prevent or forestall that eventuality.

Bob

The true believers, Religious Zealots, whose entire mental framework is defined in black and white, good and evil, are in their pulpits exhorting us to stay the course in Iraq. We may be doing bad things to innocent people, they argue, but overall, in the big picture, the bad things we do are nothing compared to the bad things others have done. Torture and sexual humiliation of “Enemy Combatants”, who by the way are not covered by the Geneva Convention for the treatment of “Prisoners of War”, a distinction that is too cute by half, has yielded much intelligence that will allow us to continue to pursue our International Goals.

Winning the war on terror, is for us the prize. We shall have won the war on terror when no one who is outcast, downtrodden or repressed will dare to challenge our dominant position in the Global Economy. It is imperative that we remember that we are fighting for World Domination, to pursue our goals of seeing our political and religious ideals and beliefs adopted across the entire world.

The Cold War was fought by our Military, Religious, Political and Industrial Complex to make our way of living, buying, selling and dying the norm. We, the followers of Judeo-Christian values want nothing less than to be permitted to impose through economics and politics our way of being in the world. This is after all, not a perfect world, but when push comes to shove, we want to be at the top of the heap.

Capitalism, having won such a hard fought war against social systems that limit how much power and money can be accumulated at the top, will not stand idly by and allow our wealth to be dissipated on a pie in the sky social system that puts power at the service of justice.

A just world order, one that makes food and medicine available to those in need, irrespective of their ability to pay, is a loser. The vast accumulation of wealth at the top cannot be reconciled with a distribution system that makes resources available to those unwilling or unable to pay.

Our economic system, which is based on putting the world’s resources at the disposal of those with the greatest wealth is not a just system, it is a free market system.

Free markets, we are constantly admonished, will deliver the greatest good to the greatest number, and while not perfect, is the best system we can devise for distribution of resources. The fact that half a continent is dying of AIDS or that two thirds of the world exists in squalor and poverty will not square with the “Compassionate Conservatism” of the free market capitalists.

Free markets are ruthless. They invent, and create “goods” for some, inadvertently creating “bads” for many. Because free markets rise and fall on the ability to identify and reward creative and inventive applications of new knowledge, we lavish untold wealth on individuals with skills to organize the productive capacity of the minions. Those charismatic or alluring individuals allow the organization around them to flourish and reward supporters with economic advantage. It is for the economic advantage that political and religious systems have fought so long and hard.

Is there another system of social organization capable of competing with free market capitalists? Can they deliver anything close to the standard of living or the level of education that Capitalism has provided? Is it a viable system that can withstand the test of time? Is it ruthless enough to stamp out and eliminate all competition for the world’s resources from competing systems? Is that a measure of its worth?

Terror comes from facing starvation and seeing images beamed around the world of beautiful people gorging themselves at the feast. It comes from watching a dying child that could be saved by a pharmaceutical, without the ability of acquiring it. Terror comes from watching free markets withhold the beneficial products from those in need, storing “goods” in warehouses while the quality of life and life expectancy itself continues to decline for the unfortunate.

The “War on Terror” is being fought by a freedom loving people who enjoy the vast resources of the known world, exclusive of the vast needs of the “other”. There is no winning this war, it is fundamentally about maintaining the distance between our system of economic domination and the people of the world that make our wealth possible.

Faced with the prospect of living and dying without hope, those who are trapped on the bottom want to eliminate our freedom, because freedom comes with responsibility and they know all too well that we have failed to make that connection.

Bob

In an effort to make my writing more plangent, and to awaken that segment of the socially active, to create a more dynamic Agenda for Peace, one that is capable of confronting the Agenda of Violence in all its Political, Economic and Religious manifestations, I took my writing with me to the asylum.

I never figured that the Carnivore, my target audience would actually read my words and validate their plausibility to the extent that they would begin a war on a possible scenario of doom that was a figment of imagination run wild. All the while the people were watching sports teams in near sudden death experiences oblivious to the bombs dropping over Baghdad, or the fires raging on the coast. I can only hope they were oblivious for none of them stopped to declare that “Shock and Awe” constitutes terrorism. To them it must have seemed like just another entertainment option.

My face, just a sand painting in the top half of the hourglass, was slipping away in a grotesque transformation, in silent witness to the power of the gravitational force exerted in the timespace fabric of the universe. It was as a sailboat slipping into the fog of night on a voyage to the far reaches of the unknown, each moment becoming less visible, less fathomable, less familiar. Into the black and oily night. It felt good to slip the lines that bound me to the hard and enter the womb of nature for a wet and wild ride under the stars.

Bob

“Hence it is chiefly in war that nations desire, and frequently need, to increase the powers of the central government. All men of military genius are fond of centralization, which increases their strength; and all men of centralizing genius are fond of war, which compels nations to combine all their powers in the hands of the government. Thus, the democratic tendency which leads men unceasingly to multiply the privileges of the state, and to circumscribe the rights of private persons, is much more rapid and constant amongst those democratic nations which are exposed by their position to great and frequent wars, than amongst all others.”

“I have shown how the dread of disturbance and the love of well-being insensibly lead democratic nations to increase the functions of central government, as the only power which appears to be intrinsically sufficiently strong, enlightened, and secure to protect them from anarchy. I would now add, that all the particular circumstances which tend to make the state of a democratic community agitated and precarious, enhance this general propensity, and lead private persons more and more to sacrifice their rights to their tranquility.”

“Our contemporaries are constantly excited by two conflicting passions; they want to be led, and they wish to remain free: as they cannot destroy either the one or the other of these contrary propensities, they strive to satisfy them both at once. They devise the sole, tutelary, and all-powerful form of government but elected by the people.

Every man allows himself to be put in leading-strings because he sees that it is not a person or a class of persons but the people at large, who hold the end of his chain.”

Alexis de Tocqueville

Assuming in principle, that it’s one day feasible to erase memories with drugs or other technological intervention, does an individual have the right to erase his or her own recollection of the past? The recent past only? The distant past only? An entire mind-wipe?

For me, the ideal for a workable social contract in a free society protects not only the "us" of a like-minded community, but also the otherwise self-contained "bad guys" who may be off in a corner cussing and throwing sand in their own sand box. A true democratic state (or if we can ever hope, a globe), has got to make better room for the "unsavory," the "distasteful," the "immoral," etc. So long as the perceived enemy is only swearing blue and kicking sand in his own eyes, in his own space and not casting shadows, there’s little at issue. Other than allowing the aspersions of his neighbors gossiping at his "offensive" behavior, "filthy" language, maybe even his "smelly" cigars, we should have no say whatsoever in what he does with his own life. The bandwagon of the self-righteous always seems to have room for one more person’s morality forced on another. It’s not enough to be seeped in postmodernity, I’d like to live in post-morality —— where we could each civilly despise each other, and agree that that’s ok. In my opinion, any paternalism that gets our government involved in trying to oversee the lives of its private citizens is a serious overreach of power.

Wrye Sententia

It’s o.k., I already asked my doctor. He told me I was on drugs my whole life. It started with a tube of goop he squirted in my eyes to kill the syphilis, and included a host of injections against diphtheria, polio, tetanus, typhoid, and who knows what else. It continues today with Valium and Viagra and Zylophenenomene. That’s so I can play a musical instrument naked without confusing my yin and my yang.

The concept that I have to ask anyone for cognitive liberty is foreign to me. Did my ancestors ask the King of England for their freedom? Did they ask the Pope?

Freedom is something you assert, they try to remove it.

And so it is with the union of man with man, woman with woman. Does anyone think for a single moment that they can prevent two lovers from leaping off a cliff together? Does anyone think for even a brief moment that placing the opprobrium of “normal people” on the range of emotion, thought or behavior that the human animal is capable of will prevent the human animal from drinking, smoking or sex?

Been there, done that. Prohibition is failed policy. It’s time to take the Bull by the Tail and face the situation. It’s not pretty, but it’s real.

Do you value freedom? How much can you tolerate? Freedom stops when the free will of one man impinges on the liberty of others. Outside of that pretty much anything goes.

Are you strong enough to not only assert your own freedom but to stand up and argue that others can be no less free?

Liberty, Fraternity, Equality.

Is there a more reasonable alternative?

Bob

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A new war memorial is being built. It appears every evening at the end of the News Hour when the faces of those killed in Iraq are displayed in silence, for our private viewing, in the living rooms of our homes. The soldiers always seem so young, so full of idealism and hope for a better tomorrow. Why are they dying, I wonder, except to make the world a better place? Why did they chose, I wonder, to create that place behind the barrel of a gun, or the controls of an attack helicopter? The faces are of the young men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in the Coliseum of Armed Conflict, demonstrated daily in our electronic circus.

Is it unquestionable true, that in this millennium, after so many wars fought to end war, the best means we have devised to achieve peace in the world is to send young soldiers into combat? If it is not, what is the appropriate question? Is there an alternative to armed conflict in the affairs of the world?

The Vietnam memorial was built of the names of those who made the sacrifice with their lives that they should have made with their hearts and minds. I can only believe that in their hearts and minds they thought and felt that the killing would justify the ends. Too many idealistic brave souls paid with their lives, so that we could see the New World Order continue as the Old, in armed conflict. I read recently that in our Republic there are only 78 years of our history free of war, the most brutal and destructive being the war fought amongst ourselves.

The Iraq memorial is an electronic memorial built of the faces of the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice, a work updated daily, to de-construct the government of a foreign state. Of the 191 United Nations pledged to the principle that Diplomacy, Law and Reason are the best mechanisms we have to create a world in peace, we are the ones that chose to defend against foreign terror with pre-emptive war. US.

We are the ones that maintain the largest and most lethal arsenal in the world. US.

We shall honor the fallen with photos, at the end of the evening broadcast, to steel our resolve that armed conflict justifies the undoing of any evil we care to define, and that it will make us more secure to kill our enemy than to feed and educate them.

We are the worlds free people, who hold the torch of liberty at our shores. Be like us, we speak to the world, armed to the teeth, sword at our sides, ready to kill and be killed, in the name of our finest principles......

... as the light of the torch grows dim.

Bob

``As used in this Act:

``(1) Act of international terrorism.--The term `act of

international terrorism' means an act--

``(A) which is violent or dangerous to human life and that

is a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of

any State or that would be a criminal violation if committed

within the jurisdiction of the United States or any State; and

``(B) which appears to be intended--

``(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

``(ii) to influence the policy of a government by

intimidation or coercion; or

``(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by

assassination or kidnapping.

Grasp this truth. Most of your life will be spent on the edge of your chair, waiting for the next Nuke to go off.

I grew up thinking that in school. Any day can be the last day. The teachers used that to program the examined life. They wanted it to be immediate, not some distant moral question about thievery or the right to own property. Right now, are you ready to meet your Goddess?

If you know what that feels like, let me ask you this. Does it feel right now like a Nuke could go off? Or is it that we’re on the edge of a revolution?

The beauty of truth is that it washes through consciousness like a fresh cleansing breeze, lifting a diaphanous veil. Everything is as before, since the veil is translucent, but the view now is crisp and clear.

No, I don’t want to live with a Nuke, not mine, not yours, not anybodies.

Isn’t that the point of the NPT? To get rid of the Nukes?

The Israelis are doing to themselves what they hated the Nazis for doing. The Nazis isolated them behind barbed wire and concrete walls, as the first step. The Israelis think that isolating themselves will make them secure, and not lead to another step. Truly this is a disconnect between the past and the present, between reality and fiction. Safety behind walls ended with the siege of Jericho.

Erecting barricades is a futile act of a disturbed people fulfilling the prophecy of Armageddon through politics. The enemy is within the walls, acting out a passion spiel.

Will this war in Iraq seem like a mistake when the entire news hour with Jim Lehrer is devoted to the faces, in silent review, of United States Soldiers lost to attrition? Or will it seem like mistaken policy when only twenty minutes is devoted to that slow motion slide show?

The realpolitik of National Violence against the disenfranchised, the confused and the mistaken can only be realized as failed policy at the grave sites of the innocent. There is no glory in killing the dispossessed, the misguided and the ignorant.

You can’t hug your enemy with Nuclear Arms. Embracing those that worship the gods of war comes at a risk. Not embracing them is a recipe for disaster.

If Libya can forswear WMD, what does that say about them, and about US?

Feeding North Korea is the best step we can take to embrace their humanity. 60 tons of food is a good first step.........

Bob