This "Old Fool" doesn't mess with April.
Now the planning for Crusade MMIX is entering its final stages. I have bought tickets to San Francisco and Madrid and am unable to dream of Brussels for which I have no images. The logistics will leave me skipping Portugal this time, which is a shame, but I expect to strengthen bonds with non-Paris France and that old friend The 'Dam.
The Crusade might shape up to include a major Action in Our Nation's Capital, but I've been so joy-struck that I will probably just come home and work on expounding.
I still can't reliably account for the recent spate of Sermons, but it felt good to broadcast broadsides and just revel in being.
This is sort of like the beginning of a new era so I will make a New Year's Resolution, perhaps following through on heavy thumb-typing practice so I can follow my initiation into Wireless World with a littering of Twittering?
Love.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Bye Bye Barack
At a recent "Town Hall" event it was noted that a question that ranked high among those asked by the online audience was ""With over 1 out of 30 Americans controlled by the penal system, why not legalize, control, and tax marijuana to change the failed war on drugs into a money making, money saving boost to the economy? Do we really need that many victimless criminals?"
In a video he ignored the real thrust of the question and proceeded to act like a right-wing demagogue by playing the whole thing as a joke - and because of the nature of the in-person audience got the cheap laugh.
The question was serious, not to be flipped off by ancient religious superstitions that demean the importance of getting high. He, for God's sake, smokes cigarettes, and likely imbibes caffeine and perhaps the ethanol he thinks is going to provide relief from imported oil. But then those things have all been kept mostly legal and the Calvinists, etc. have managed to put our magic herb on a proscribed list, as if it were a poison - like tobacco/caffeine/alcohol.
Marijuana is the #1 Cash Crop in California! To pretend that it's not an important key to helping stimulate the economy (the taxes could be as punitive as those on cigarettes and yield billions in revenue) - after all it can be grown for pennies and sells for lots o' bux. And for whatever absurd political reason, he chose to break our hearts with demagoguery.
Shame on him.
Love.
In a video he ignored the real thrust of the question and proceeded to act like a right-wing demagogue by playing the whole thing as a joke - and because of the nature of the in-person audience got the cheap laugh.
The question was serious, not to be flipped off by ancient religious superstitions that demean the importance of getting high. He, for God's sake, smokes cigarettes, and likely imbibes caffeine and perhaps the ethanol he thinks is going to provide relief from imported oil. But then those things have all been kept mostly legal and the Calvinists, etc. have managed to put our magic herb on a proscribed list, as if it were a poison - like tobacco/caffeine/alcohol.
Marijuana is the #1 Cash Crop in California! To pretend that it's not an important key to helping stimulate the economy (the taxes could be as punitive as those on cigarettes and yield billions in revenue) - after all it can be grown for pennies and sells for lots o' bux. And for whatever absurd political reason, he chose to break our hearts with demagoguery.
Shame on him.
Love.
Make Love, Not War
Our illustrious president said something to the effect that "the key to Peace is War in Afghanistan"!!!
Yet another victory for Orwellian newspeak.
From the history of France in "French Indo-China" and our own quagmire-testing there in Vietnam we didn't learn that military adventures and imperialistic designs were particularly problematic when our supply lines must cross oceans. The Soviet Union didn't have nearly so far to send their awesome weaponry, but a bevy of tribes in a fairly desolate land not only thwarted their being ruled from afar, but actually played a major part in the destruction of the original "evil empire".
I guess it should be a possible consolation that we could dissipate all of our renewed stock of good will and a generation of young Americans and Afghanis and perhaps create, almost as a side effect, a genuine revolutions: change we can believe in?
Maybe we can also resurrect the Shah and really get loco?
Love.
Yet another victory for Orwellian newspeak.
From the history of France in "French Indo-China" and our own quagmire-testing there in Vietnam we didn't learn that military adventures and imperialistic designs were particularly problematic when our supply lines must cross oceans. The Soviet Union didn't have nearly so far to send their awesome weaponry, but a bevy of tribes in a fairly desolate land not only thwarted their being ruled from afar, but actually played a major part in the destruction of the original "evil empire".
I guess it should be a possible consolation that we could dissipate all of our renewed stock of good will and a generation of young Americans and Afghanis and perhaps create, almost as a side effect, a genuine revolutions: change we can believe in?
Maybe we can also resurrect the Shah and really get loco?
Love.
But What Can I Do?
One of the most frequent questions asked of people proposing various Utopian schemes designed to "improve the world" is usually preceded by "I completely agree with your proposed solution to humanity's problems..."
The questioners display impatience with the enormity of the task of achieving some lofty goal like World Peace or Universal Health Care or a Basic Income Guarantee (my current favorite). The most frequent response is to "keep on keeping on" and hope/expect Dr. Time to be an ally.
Because I've reached "dotage" it's clear that, at the very most we are vectors pointing to said aspirations - the idea of a "turning point" or some historically vital landmark (usually a pariah) is pretty vain. Tim's book is almost self-deprecating in a field replete with "fathers of the Web Age" who claim primacy, be they Ted Nelson or Doug Engelbart or Gates/Wozniak and now Wales.
Each took part but so did we all either leading, following or staying pretty much out of the way.
But how about Ghandi or Dr. King or perhaps Jackie Robinson? Weren't they true differnce-makers? Yes, in a way and they had certain aspects in common that may lead to an answer to the Sermon's theme: although they talked extensively, they also walked with a certain affrontery towards the institutions they sought to change. Trouble is they all died before their goals really were attained.
So, I guess that in general the answer is, as usual, to think globally and act locally, i.e. seize command of what you can reach. You too can be the mayor of Podunk and maybe shake so much that the ensuing rain of shed water will float us towards "The Promised Land"! Worth a try.
Love.
The questioners display impatience with the enormity of the task of achieving some lofty goal like World Peace or Universal Health Care or a Basic Income Guarantee (my current favorite). The most frequent response is to "keep on keeping on" and hope/expect Dr. Time to be an ally.
Because I've reached "dotage" it's clear that, at the very most we are vectors pointing to said aspirations - the idea of a "turning point" or some historically vital landmark (usually a pariah) is pretty vain. Tim's book is almost self-deprecating in a field replete with "fathers of the Web Age" who claim primacy, be they Ted Nelson or Doug Engelbart or Gates/Wozniak and now Wales.
Each took part but so did we all either leading, following or staying pretty much out of the way.
But how about Ghandi or Dr. King or perhaps Jackie Robinson? Weren't they true differnce-makers? Yes, in a way and they had certain aspects in common that may lead to an answer to the Sermon's theme: although they talked extensively, they also walked with a certain affrontery towards the institutions they sought to change. Trouble is they all died before their goals really were attained.
So, I guess that in general the answer is, as usual, to think globally and act locally, i.e. seize command of what you can reach. You too can be the mayor of Podunk and maybe shake so much that the ensuing rain of shed water will float us towards "The Promised Land"! Worth a try.
Love.
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